


Time Flows Like a River

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Cluedo - Fandom, Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek Novelverse - Fandom, Stargate References - Fandom
Genre: Asgard, Cluedo, Diary/Journal, Gap Filler, Guilt, Introspection, Romantic Fluff, Sulamid, Tesselecta, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 38,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time flows like a river, in and out, over cascades, slowly in placid shallows and quickly in the rapids, and doubling back on itself. Fed by the streams and rivulets that are other people, flowing into one’s own time stream.</p><p>He had his own personal River</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cover Art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amie33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amie33/gifts), [SnubNosedSilhouette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnubNosedSilhouette/gifts), [Kehwie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kehwie/gifts), [Princess_Pinky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Pinky/gifts), [Radiolaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/gifts), [areyoumarriedriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyoumarriedriver/gifts).



> Warning: there are links to other stories in some chapters of this story, and **those** stories may not be rated T or less

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to Dangreenacres, who had a better idea of what I saw in my head than I did.


	2. A Picnic at Asgard

_“It's okay. It's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me. Time and space. You watch us run!”_

_~River Song, Forest of the Dead_

 

He _wanted_ to. The Doctor wanted to run with her, with River Song. He had a feeling it would be running _together_ , not him dragging her from star to planet to moon as he had with most of the others. A few of them had been able to keep up with him - Jamie had, and Jo and Sarah Jane _(when I was young)_ , Ace and Martha and Jack _(even when I was cruel to them, they kept right on going)._ Donna _(oh, I miss you, sister of my hearts)_. Lady Christina. Adelaide had been a step _ahead_ , and... best not to think about that now. But most had had to be pulled along, even Rose at first.

River Song would keep up, maybe even challenge him. _Had_ done, if even half of what she’d told him was true.... and that had been little enough, with her _spoilers_.

So when he got a note on the psychic paper - _Hello, Sweetie, could use some help. xo_ \- he felt his hearts clench. The prospect of meeting River Song again... it was both joyful and unbearably, unutterably sad. He wasn’t at all sure he believed it was real; he knew she lived still in this time, but... well. The coordinates indicated a planet he’d only visited once, but he remembered her mentioning a picnic, and so he packed a hamper and set the controls. With a certain bemusement, he realised that _he_ may have found it sad, but his old girl seemed almost gleeful as she twirled through the Vortex to Asgard.

They landed, and the Doctor hesitated just inside the TARDIS doors. _Stop that_ , he admonished himself. _She’s alive in this now and you can’t_... he took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Hello, Sweetie,” River Song said, and for just a fraction of an instant there was a look of surprise on her face. At least he thought there was; he could be mistaken. It was hard to tell, given that she was surrounded by several hundred Asgardians, and they were passing her gun from little grey hand to little grey hand. She was perhaps a bit distracted. “Could use some help here,” she said breezily, “As I don’t speak their language. They seem friendly, and I wouldn’t want any of them hurt.” She nodded at her pulse pistol, into the barrel of which an Asgardian was staring with wide black eyes.

The Doctor dropped the picnic hamper and waded into the throng, patting heads as he went and speaking softly to them in their own language. When he got to the one who was now holding River’s pulse pistol (by the barrel, and tapping its neighbour with the grip), he gently took the gun away, holding it delicately between forefinger and thumb, and regarding it with distaste. The Asgardian gave him a disgusted look and started tapping its neighbour with one elbow instead.

“Yours, I believe, Professor Song?” asked the Doctor formally, leaning over several Asgardians to hand her the pistol. In his haste to get rid of it, he nearly fumbled as he dropped it into her hand, and so missed the second flash of emotion across her face. But he heard... _something,_ something so very sad... in her voice as she thanked him, and his hearts clenched again. _Bollocks_ , he thought, _now I’ve hurt her and I don’t even know how._ He tried to smile at her over the Asgardians’ smooth grey heads, but he could feel how false the smile felt.

“Don’t do that, Doctor,” River said quietly, looking down at the gun she held. “You needn’t hide, not from me. If you could retrieve my vortex manipulator for me as well, I’ll leave you to it.” She looked up at him in surprise as his hand clamped around her wrist, and he could _see_. She was able to keep the emotion off her face, but not out of her eyes. So _sad_ , just as her voice had been, although the eyes were dry, and her expression was calm and mildly quizzical. She cleared her throat. “What is it, my love?”

The Doctor couldn’t stop himself; he wanted her to stay with him. He knew it was stupid, because she had / would still die there in the Library, but he wanted her to _stay_. Even if only for the picnic at Asgard she’d mentioned. He tried to ask but the lump in his throat was too big, and he had to swallow hard several times. “Will you stay, Professor Song? I’ve a picnic hamper.” He looked around for it, and found that two Asgardians had their heads stuck inside it, while a third was swinging the handles back and forth. He sighed. “We seem to have come across an Asgard kindergarten; they’re not usually this intrusively curious.”

“I thought they were clones,” River said, and smiled at him, as though they were in fact two adults sharing an indulgent grin in a playground full of children. “Why would they have different ages?” The Doctor stared at her. _Now how did she know that_ , he wondered, _and how... oh right. Archaeologist_.

“Not for several hundred years yet,” he said, and pulled out his screwdriver to scan the area. The baby Asgardians nearest him more or less leapt at him to investigate this new and interesting thing. He read the scan and put it away, much to their disappointment. “Yes,” he said, “We’re quite early for that. But it’s just about teatime. Shall we?” He crooked one elbow, and she waded through the children between them, snatching her VM unit on the way, and took it. She holstered her pistol, gave a sharp look at the little grey being trying to unholster it, and softened as it whinged at her.

The Doctor disentangled the three Asgardian children from the hamper and held it out of their reach. They all chittered at him. “What are they saying, Doctor?” River asked, and he listened for a moment. “And why did they find me so fascinating?” That he could answer without thinking, as he looked her up and down.

“Your skin is pink, you’re nearly twice the height of their adults, and you have hair.” _Amazing hair,_ brilliant _hair_ , went the stray thought through his mind; _it hadn’t looked like that in the Library, and_... and he shook his head. “And mostly they’re just pleading with you to show them your toys... and your hair.”

“But you’re taller than I, and you’ve got nearly as much hair.” She was laughing at him.

“They saw you first. You’re their human.”

“I’m...” River trailed off, sounding uncomfortable, and the Doctor found himself smiling down at her. It had been far too long since he’d truly smiled.

Too long since he’d felt like smiling.

He’d rather missed it.

But she pulled her hand away from his arm and grabbed the picnic hamper from him, and ran ahead, uphill to a small grove of bright purple feathery-looking trees. The Doctor watched her; she looked quite young with those amazing curls bouncing behind her as she ran. _Right_ , he admonished himself, suddenly depressed again. _No matter what she knew - or knows - about you, she’s still human, and that never ends well... Remember that_. He trudged slowly up the hill toward her.

“Professor Song,” the Doctor began as he reached her, and he saw her flinch before she could control the reaction, her face going very still, almost as though she had put on a mask. Still, she was smiling a twisted little half-smile at him, and he dropped down beside her on the picnic rug. “What is it?”

River shook her head. “Nothing, sweetie. Spoilers.” _Oh_ , he thought, _of course spoilers_. He sighed heavily and accepted the lemonade she handed him.

The Doctor took a sip and asked, as casually as he could manage, “Well, Professor, what _can_ you tell me? Anything? Where you got your degree in archaeology? What century you’re from?” Earth or somewhere else?”

“Luna University.” _That doesn’t narrow it down much,_ the Doctor thought sourly, _still thousands of years to look through..._ “The when is complicated. So is the where.” She answered him promptly, glibly, as though she had been expecting the questions and preparing for them. Maybe she had. He thought then, as he had fleetingly in the Library, that she must be a Time Agent, like Jack had been before they’d met. It would explain everything. Well... almost everything.

“Ah,” he said. “Wibbly wobbly then?”

“And timey wimey,” she agreed, and those sparkling green eyes smiled at him over the rim of her lemonade glass.

The Doctor was so taken aback at her casual reply that he began to laugh for the first time in months. _She’s one of my travelling companions, of course_ , _but from the future,_ he thought as the laughter made him choke on his lemonade. Professor Song - no, that was too formal... she was _River_ \- River pounded him on the back, and if she noticed that his laughter was tinged with hysteria, she didn’t mention it. _Of course not,_ the Doctor thought, and laughed even harder, _if she’s a companion from my future, she’s seen all this before. Mad old Time Lord, probably laughs until he cries every week._

Because he _was_ crying now, in great gasping sobs, because of Rose and Donna and Adelaide and Jenny and River herself. River was holding him, rocking back and forth, murmuring nonsense into his hair until finally the sobs became hiccoughs, and the tears were quieter, regretful rather than anguished. “Hush now,” he heard her say, and he shuddered. The last time he’d heard her say that she’d... but he was distracted from the thought as she pulled away slightly to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor whispered. “I’m so, _so_ sorry.” He didn’t even know who he was apologising to, or for what, but River’s wet green eyes - so _sad_ again - looked steadily into his brown ones and she managed a smile.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” she said, and reached up to stroke the side of his face. He leaned into the touch, wondering vaguely why he permitted this sort of... _intimacy_ from her. Crying in her arms, letting her comfort him instead of the other way ‘round. She was certainly no average travelling companion. “I’m sure it’s been a long time coming.”

He nodded, and was going to speak, but he heard a strange snuffling sort of noise, and he looked around. River put her arms around him and whispered in his ear. “We’ve a guest at our picnic.” He felt the brush of her lips on his earlobe, and he gasped a bit, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She was looking down at an Asgardian - the smallest one they’d seen yet - butting at her hip with its head. She reached out carefully with one hand and stroked the top of its head, then let it nuzzle at her palm. The Doctor looked at her face and noticed that she had tears in her eyes again, and decided it was his go to reach out and touch her cheek. She looked up, and the tears sparkled but they did not fall. “Look at it, Doctor,” she whispered, gesturing with her chin at the baby. “It’s such a dear little thing. What does it want, can you tell?”

The Doctor listened carefully to the infant ramblings and felt his cheeks flush. “Well... they _are_ mammals - marsupials, really. It’s not very coherent at this age, but I’d say it’s getting hungry. You stay here with it, and I’ll look for its mum.” River picked the baby up and cradled it, then pointed with her free hand.

“I think mum is looking for it,” she said, and the Doctor turned to look at the Asgardian walking their way, scanning the ground as though looking for something lost. He thought perhaps the facial expression was simply concern rather than mama-rage, but he wasn’t sure, so he shouted to her in her own language, and she straightened and headed straight for them. “Doctor,” whispered River urgently, “Would you explain to her please? I don’t want to frighten a baby or its mother. I...” she trailed off as the baby started to babble, just as any human baby would, and the adult answered it.

The Doctor smiled at River. “It’s all right. Brilliant, really; the baby can tell its mum what’s happened. Just now it’s whinging that you ignored it when it asked for food.” He looked on fondly as the adult Asgardian gently took her baby from River and tucked it into her pouch. She said something in the chittering language of her people, and the Doctor smiled at them again. “She thanks you for caring for her young, in spite of your er... ungainly limbs and uncomely head covering. Her words, not mine,” he finished hastily, as River levelled a _look_ at him. He grinned at her, and was rewarded by a slow, warm smile.

“Hello,” she said, and he giggled.

“Hello.” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers, until he heard something that sounded very like a snort coming from the Asgardian mother. He glanced at her, and flushed when he heard her say, _mating games not now, silly pink skins_.

And then she went away with her baby, leaving them on the top of the little hill under the purple feathery trees that were like something out of Seuss. River looked at him, seriously now, and the Doctor took her hands and drew her to her feet. “Who are you, River Song? Who are you to me?” She smiled at him, sadly, and shook her head.

“You know I can’t say, Doctor. Please don’t push me.” Her voice was high and strained, but her face was still placid and calm, showing none of the turmoil he could see in her eyes. “At any rate, sweetie...” She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek, chastely. “The Ood are looking for you, in the forty-third century. I’m sorry, my love, but it’s time for you to go.”

“I don’t want to go.” He knew he sounded stupid, like a sulky child, but he didn’t care. “I _won’t_ go.”

River shook her head again, wild curls bouncing incongruously around her serious face. “You will. Not today, perhaps, but when the Ood want you, they will summon you. It has been written.”

The Doctor clenched his teeth. “It can be rewritten.”

“No,” River said sadly. “It can’t. I’m sorry, my love.” She pressed a button at her wrist, wrenched herself away from the Doctor, and disappeared in a column of dust and lightning.

And the Doctor sat down on the picnic rug and buried his face in his hands.


	3. Handcuffs

_“You. Me. Handcuffs. Must it always end this way?”_

_~River Song, Flesh and Stone_

 

The Doctor hadn’t expected this. Just a short jaunt to Earth’s moon, shake the kinks out of the new body, back in a tick to the little girl with the timey-wimey crack in her wall. Little girl with a brilliant name, Amelia Pond, like a name in a fairytale. Right, well, he’d meant to go for five minutes, and here it’d been at _least_ six, and he wasn’t even _on_ the Moon.

Maybe. He made an experimental little hop. No, not the Moon. Not Earth’s moon at any rate, unless he’d gotten all the way to the thirty-somethingth century, with the gravity concentration beams and...

“Hello, sweetie.”

The Doctor’s thought was derailed as he heard her voice.  It sounded like her, like Professor Song, no, _River_ , call her River. But it sounded... weak, breathless perhaps, as though she’d been running or... “River? Are you all right?” He peered into the gloom and discovered a barred window of sorts. She must be beyond it.

“Well,” she said, and took a laboured breath. “Can you scan for atmosphere?”

“No, sorry, sonic’s on the blink. Hang on...” He stuck out his tongue and tasted the air. “Hmm... levels are about Earth-normal, a trifle low on accessible O2 but you’re healthy, that shouldn’t... oh.” He shook his head and angled himself to look through the window into the adjoining... was it a _cell_? “River, how long have you been here?”

“Don’t... know. At least... a day?” _Oh... oh dear, she does sound badly off._

“Air _pressure_ is far too low for humans, you’ve got altitude sickness, badly. Bit odd you’re even conscious really, good on you.” He tried to recall what he knew about this, even as he engaged his respiratory bypass. “Headache, dizziness, fatigue. Shortness of breath, yeah, nosebleed? swollen feet and hands?” He looked over in alarm, and could dimly make out her slumped form, as she shook her head. “Good. There’s that at least. But we’ve got to get you out of here, into Earth normal pressure, and soon.”

River laughed on a sort of gasp. “That could be... harder than you... realise, honey. The...” The gasps were getting more frequent now, fewer words between them, as she struggled for oxygen. “Judoon...” She lapsed into silence, but the Doctor had enough information to work with, now.

“Sco no po tro frono jo konafo tohodo. Noso bo hopho koro tosokado! Boma tosa fopapo panojo!”He shouted for the Judoon, and was rewarded by the uncanny sight of a Judoon officer _scurrying_ toward him. The Judoon did not scurry as a rule; there must be an idiom - an offensive one - that he had hit upon by accident, one that could shock even a stoic rhino.

 _Good_.

“I am the Doctor,” he repeated in English as the officer opened the door of his cell. “You have my friend and she does not have enough air. You must release her.”

“She is a thief.”

“If your orders were for execution, you would have killed her outright. She needs thicker air, and she needs it _now_. She is under _my_ protection.” He trailed off, letting the Judoon officer absorb the unspoken threat. After the Moon, and after the Shadow Proclamation, the Judoon _knew_ him.

They knew just what he was capable of if crossed.

The Judoon grunted and opened the door further, motioned the Doctor out. “Maho,” the Doctor thanked it, and it grunted again. It opened the door to River’s cell, let the Doctor in, then closed the door behind him.

“The air will be thick,” it said grudgingly, and left.

“Earth sea level,” shouted the Doctor after it, “And slowly!” And then he turned to River, slumped against the wall. “Oh, River,” he said softly, shaking his head, and he knelt by her unconscious form and felt for her pulse. Fast and thready, and that was not good; her heart was tripping far too quickly for a human’s, it was going so fast that it almost felt like there were four beats instead of two. _Four knocks._ The Doctor shuddered as _that_ thought flitted through his mind, and sat heavily on the floor. He pulled River close with her head cradled against his chest, stroking his fingers through her hair and waiting for the air pressure to rise enough to help her. He _knew_ she only needed more air, she’d be _fine_ , and he wondered vaguely why he was so worried about her. He barely knew her. Of course, he _had_ just regenerated, so maybe he was more sensitive or maybe this whole thing was a fever dream, an hallucination.

He’d never had olfactory hallucinations before though, and her hair smelled very good.

 _Not the most restful post-regeneration period I’ve had_ , he thought vaguely as the slowly increasing pressure made his ears pop. A little puff of regeneration energy wafted out of each ear as the pressure equalised, and some of it drifted toward River’s face, dusting it with golden light. _She’s beautiful,_ he thought, and he bent to press his lips against her forehead, just as though she was any travelling companion. _But she’s not,_ the thought flitted through his mind, _she’s... never mind that now_... “I’ve got you, River. You’ll be okay, I promise.” He murmured the words against her skin as her hair tickled his nose.

“Thank you, sweetie.” River’s voice was a whisper, and the Doctor felt one warm hand creep around his neck and pull him down further. Or pull herself up, it wasn’t clear which, and then she was kissing him. _Sweet_ , he thought, _and wet and warm and._.. and then he stopped thinking altogether. River shifted without disengaging until she was sitting in his lap, and she was still _kissing_ him. Golden regeneration energy was trickling between their lips to swirl around them, and he could feel it tingling against his skin.

He heard himself whimper into her mouth with the _sensation_ of it all.

River gasped and pulled away, and they sat there, panting, eyes wide and locked, until the Judoon came back, a platoon of them this time. “I’m sorry,” River whispered, and she stood, pulling him to his feet and gripping his hand tightly. They faced the door and watched warily as the Judoon opened it.

“You will come with us to our employer,” said the Judoon - the Doctor looked carefully at the rank insignia - said the Judoon commander directly to River. “He will decide your final disposition.”

“I’m coming too,” declared the Doctor. “We’ll work this out.”

The commander grunted. “I cannot stop you,” it said in a surly tone. “The Shadow Proclamation has decreed that we are not to interfere with the Doctor.”

“Then shall we, Doctor?” asked River in a clear, calm voice, though the Doctor could feel her trembling slightly. He wondered if it was fear or lingering altitude sickness. She held out her wrists to the Judoon commander.. “I assume you feel the need to restrain me, simple woman though I am.” The Doctor managed to muffle a snort of laughter. He didn’t know what she was, or who she was, but he felt certain that nothing about River Song was _simple_.

He reclaimed her hand.

“There’s no need for that,” he said shortly, but the Judoon commander had had enough - they were nothing if not expedient, the Doctor reflected - and handcuffed them together rather than argue about it. The Doctor considered struggling, but as River seemed very calm about the whole thing, he decided to let it lie, and came along quietly.

When they left the building though, the Doctor looked around, sniffed a few times, tasted the air, and then he began to get angry again. The air here was _fine_ , a bit thinner than Earth sea level, dry and dusty and with an unpleasant overtone of ozone, but it was certainly not as thin as the air in the building had been. He couldn’t help himself, he clutched at River’s hand convulsively, and she looked up at him, startled. Then her eyes narrowed as she took a deep breath and obviously figured it out, watched the expression on his face, and now she was angry too. Aside from the narrowed eyes she didn’t show it though, and her voice was casual when she said, “Do you know where we are, Doctor?” as though they were taking a pleasure cruise.

Well, two could play at that game. The Doctor reached up with the hand cuffed to hers and pointed at the magenta-ringed planet hovering at the horizon. “See that? And smell the _thinnish,_ arid atmosphere?” She nodded and gave a ghost of a smile at his pointed hint to the Judoon, who almost certainly would not get it. “We’re on Segonax. Nice planet, bit dry perhaps, pretty skies. _Breathable atmosphere_.” She nudged him - _knock it off, Doctor_ \- and he gave her a little grin, but he quit baiting the Judoon. No fun if they didn’t even know it after all.

They trudged across the sands for more than an hour, toward another building, and the Doctor noticed that River’s breathing was becoming laboured again. He bent his head toward her. “You okay, River?” he asked in a low tone. “I’ll make them stop if you need me to.” She shook her head.

“I’m okay. No permanent... damage.” She hesitated and he squeezed her hand.

“If you’re sure...” he said doubtfully, and she threw him a brilliant smile as the Judoon commander barked an order too quickly for the Doctor to catch. He soon figured it out though, as a Judoon hand clamped onto his shoulder (and River’s; her knees buckled slightly before she recovered herself) and they came to a stop in front of the building. The Judoon commander gestured at one of his men, who pulled out a communicator and spoke into it.

A tall, thin being - about as different from the Judoon as it was possible for a biped to be - appeared in front of them in a column of lightning and dust. He - the Doctor was sure of this, as the being wore no coverings over sexual characteristics; apparently his short silky pelt was all the covering he needed - did not even pause before he looked at the Doctor and said, “This is not the correct thief,” and pulled out a weapon from somewhere, aimed at the nearest Judoon and fired.

The Judoon disappeared without a sound, and the Judoon commander stared for a split second before it gathered its wits and said, as mildly as was possible for its species. “Not that one. _This_ one,” and it shoved River forward. She stumbled to her knees in front of the tall being, their handcuffed wrists dragging the Doctor with her, although he remained standing. He squeezed her hand.

“She is under my protection,” he said as he helped her to her feet, exactly as he had to the Judoon. “What do you wish with her?”

“I do not wish anything with your female,” the tall being replied in a monotone. “It is not the correct female.”

“How do you know?” the Doctor asked, and then yelped, “Oi! River, quit poking me!”

“Would you like to throw me under a bus too, sweetie,” she inquired in a syrupy-sweet tone, through gritted teeth. “Or just kill me yourself?” She was practically vibrating with indignation.

“What? Oh. Ohhh. Sorry, I... well, sorry.” He tried a smile but River wasn’t paying attention to him anymore; her eyes were on the thin alien.

The tall being sighed. “The female that stole my cohort’s  treasure is of a species that can survive with little air. _This_ female...” he sneered at River, who had suddenly gone tense and still, “Is from the planet you call ‘Earth’ and is weak and puny. It became ill in little air after only one circuit of the Earth's moon around its primary. It is the incorrect female.” He made a dismissive gesture and the Doctor felt River relax beside him.

“You showed us a hologram,” protested the Judoon commander. “We brought you the woman who looks like the hologram. And you killed one of my best men.” If a Judoon was capable of servile whining, the Doctor thought, this one was doing it.

“It is of no concern to me,” said the tall alien in that curiously monotonous voice. “You have brought me the wrong thief and wasted my time. Run.” The Judoon gaped at him. The alien sighed again. “Run, puny Judoon. And take this with you.” He kicked at River’s feet, knocking them out from under her, and she fell heavily to the sand, dragging the Doctor to his knees.

“But what shall we do with them?” asked the Judoon commander plaintively.

“Kill them. Keep them. It is the same to me. Now run.”

They ran. All of them, the Judoon immediately, and as soon as River and the Doctor were on their feet, they ran too.

At some point during the running, after they were out of sight of the thin alien’s building, the Doctor glanced down at River, and he realised that she was laughing as she ran. She was breathless and rosy-cheeked, and laughing like a loon, and he couldn’t help but laugh with her. “Do you need anything back with the Judoon, River Song?” he shouted as they ran, and she shook her head.

“Everything I need is right here, honey,” she panted, and his grin grew wider.

“Good,” the Doctor said with satisfaction, and veered off the track the Judoon had left in their haste, toward where he could feel the timelines converging on his old girl. He pulled River with him, connected at handcuffed wrists and at fingertips, and just let himself experience the _running_. The pounding of feet on the sandy ground and of hearts in his chest, the regeneration energy puffing out as he panted slightly, the pull of the TARDIS on his time sense.

He could run like this, with her, forever.

The Doctor was nearly disappointed when the TARDIS came into view; he wanted the running with River to go on and on. But he snapped his fingers and they went barrelling into the blue box, laughing and gasping and falling over each other in their haste. They sank to the console stairs together, and he raised their joined hands and gasped out, “Should’ve gone back, they’ve got the only keys.”

River giggled. “Oh sweetie,” she said with an arch look. “As though I couldn’t unlock this with my fingernail.” She turned her back on him, pulling his arm over her shoulder so she could inspect it closely, and the Doctor felt a little _twist_. And his hand was free.

He felt another of those little pangs of disappointment.

River was still busy with something he couldn’t see; he assumed she was getting her own wrist free of the cuffs as well, and then she turned to him, tucking something into her blouse. There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, and she said, simply, “I’m sorry, my love.” She kissed him once on the lips, hers trembling, and whispered against his skin. “Goodbye.”

\--/--

When the Doctor woke, he was slumped in a jump seat near the TARDIS console, remembering something vaguely like an adventure with River Song - there had been kissing, and running, and handcuffs - as though it was a dream. _Oh,_ he thought fuzzily, _a dream. Of course. Regeneration sickness. At least I didn’t lose a hand this time, though it came in handy later_... He giggled to himself, and then sat bolt upright.

The little girl, Amelia Pond. Name like something in a fairytale. He had better go back; he’d told her he’d only be five minutes.

Good thing he had a time machine.


	4. Bone Meadows

_“I can run away from anything I like. Time is not the boss of me.”_

_~The Doctor, Time of Angels_

Rory was dead, and more than dead, and it was the Doctor’s fault. He had tried to help Amy remember; if she remembered, Rory wouldn’t truly be gone. But she couldn’t, at least not consciously, and so he strove to distract her, to try to make her happy. They’d visited Arcadia after its colonisation but before its fall in the Time War, and they were on their way to the Trojan Gardens. Amy was sleeping too much even for a human, and he suspected that it was some strange combination of forgetfulness and depression, and he didn’t know what to _do_.

She was sleeping again now, in fact, and when the TARDIS changed course he looked up, grateful for the distraction. “What is it, old girl?” A picture appeared on her screen, a planetary landscape, with blue trees and grass, and yellow flowers and low rolling hills. “Very pretty dear,” the Doctor said to his ship, “But is it of particular interest?” A visual representation of timelines appeared, and they... converged strangely upon the planet. As though the planet existed in several times at once, or at least part of it did “Oh. All right then. Let’s go.” A picture of Amy popped up in the corner of the screen, and then a line drawing of the TARDIS herself superimposed itself upon Amy. “I should leave her here with you? Well... all right.” He was reluctant to leave her, but the TARDIS would take care of her.

The materialisation was... odd. Shaky, as though the TARDIS was unable to find a clear path through the timelines. Or as thought she didn't want to go, in spite of showing him this place. “You all right, dear?” the Doctor asked her solicitously, and she bonged her Bell, but only once, not enough for an emergency. He got an impression of _busy here, leave me be_ , so he sat back and let her work.

And fretted about Amy, and mourned Rory’s loss.

It took him by surprise when the materialisation was complete and the TARDIS shuddered to a halt. “Ready then, love?” he asked, and opened the door, peering out. Blue grass, blue trees, rolling hills, yellow flowers... the Doctor ticked them all off in his mind, and then his attention snapped back to something near the TARDIS herself, off to one side.

Bones.

Old bones, thousands of years, probably. And they were _everywhere_. Everywhere except directly in front of his doors, which was why he hadn’t spotted them at once. He stepped out of the blue box, careful not to step on any more bones. Picking his way through the field, something caught his eye that made him stop in his tracks and stare.

River Song, staring back at him with her mouth open in shock.

There was a little canvas pavilion of some sort behind her bearing the Luna University logo. _She must still be in school,_ he thought. River was kneeling on the ground, in a space cleared of the blue grass, wearing a sleeveless tunic over slim trousers, and her magnificent hair was tied loosely back, with an errant curl blowing around her face. _Blowing around her face.._. he thought, and realised that there was a light breeze as his own hair fell across his eyes. He blinked it away, and when he looked back up she had gotten to her feet. “Hello, sweetie,” she said, whispered really, and although he couldn’t hear the words, he saw the shape of them on her lips. She looked... different somehow, softer, less confident.

The habitual knowing smirk was missing.

The Doctor found himself walking toward her, but he was utterly, completely taken aback when she rushed at him and threw her arms around him, kissing him fiercely on the lips. His mind stuttered, stalled for an endless but infinitesimal moment, and then restarted. ‘ _Maybe when you’re older’... this wasn’t what I was expecting... but, oh so sweet._.. and then he came completely to his senses and gently broke the kiss. “River...” Oh, his voice was hoarse. Lovely, that. River stared at him a moment longer, then dropped her eyes.

“I didn’t expect you. I haven’t seen you since B--” She broke off as he shook his head violently.

 _That’s what’s different,_ he realised. _This River, still-at-University River,_ _she’s..._ he decided with that part of his mind that was not aching with sympathy. _She’s less likely to invoke spoilers._

And that meant it was _his_ turn to have to lie, to avoid more spoilers than just the one of her death. He sighed. “River... look at me.” She shook her head, but otherwise she was very still. “Look at me,” he said again, and tipped her face up, kissing her gently on the forehead. “I can’t tell you much,” he said quietly, “but you know about the spoilers?” She nodded, eyes swimming. He sighed again. “And you understand that our lives are... opposite in some ways?” She nodded again, and the hurt look was beginning to fade, to be replaced by one of dawning understanding.

“So you don’t come see me at Luna, because you... haven’t?” Her voice was rusty and she cleared her throat as he nodded. “Because it would, what? Change our history?” She shook her head. “Never mind, of course that’s it.” Her expression was still sad, but the hurt was gone, with resignation in its place. She took a deep breath. “Right then,” she said in a falsely bright voice. “Want to come dig in the dirt with me then? I’m told you don’t much care for it, but as you’ve come all this way...”

 _Ugh_ , the Doctor thought, _archaeology_. But her eyes had been so _wistful_ as she looked at him, and... so he smiled at her. “In the dirt’s as good a place to start as any; there’s something very... timey wimey about this planet. The timelines are converging here in some very odd ways.” Whipping out his sonic, he began to scan the area, the bones, River herself. “Hmm... mammalian bipeds, mostly, though there’s an odd mix of other bones here. River, could you...” he trailed off, noting that she was frowning at him. “What?”

“You’re _cheating_!”

“Am not,” he responded automatically, and grinned at her. “If I were a... an _archaeologist_ this would be cheating. But I’m not, I’m the Doctor, and this is a perfectly legitimate way of getting information. Oh, stop pouting,” and here he bopped her lightly on the nose with one long forefinger. “You love it.”

“No,” River said in a petulant tone, “I hate you.”

“You don’t.” He smirked at her.

“Fine,” she muttered, and knelt in her little patch of bare ground again. “You know where to find me.”

 _She’s so disappointed that I won’t do it her way. Well, what would it hurt? I can stand it for a little while. Right then, her way it is_. “River?” She looked up, wiping a hand over her forehead and leaving a smudge. He knelt beside her, heedless of the dirt. “Hand me a spade.”

The brilliant smile she gave him as she handed him the spade - it almost made this silly old-fashioned method worth the trouble.

They dug companionably for a while, River pausing every so often to push hair out of her face or to pick up a little brush and dust a piece of bone before setting it carefully aside. The Doctor kept one eye on her and one on the ground where he knelt; he suspected River would never forgive him if he crushed any of her archaeological artifacts. She kept up a short monologue, almost as though she was talking to herself, cataloguing in her mind. “The Fields of Trenzalore,” she said, and, “But that's not _here_ , it's across the galaxy, and...” and, “Oh, look at this!” and “Hmm... not just a cooking pot, something special, maybe for medicine or a ritual...”

Then River sat back on her heels and stretched. “I... Doctor, I think I’ve found something. Help me.” She began to pick round the edges of something with a small tool, pausing to brush off the face of the... tablet?... that they were unearthing. The she lifted it free, and he saw. It was a flat hinged box, and inside the box, a memorial plaque of the type humans used to mark their dead. Or maybe a signboard, a you-are-here. Or both. But on it, the swirls and loops of Gallifreyan script. And what it _said_...

The Doctor took the plaque from River, and stood. “Can you translate it, Doctor?” Her question was innocent, trusting, but his hearts clenched with fear as he read it aloud.

 

           

 

Translated into English, it read something like, “ _The Fall of the Eleventh, in the place called Trenzalore. Silence will fall, when the Question is asked.”_

 _“Doctor,”_ River was saying urgently, and the Doctor realised she’d been saying his name for some time, at least a few minutes; he hadn’t heard her for the roaring in his ears. The words he had read aloud, they were like a... a trigger for time. through time and space, here in this place. Those converging timelines, the ones that had drawn him here... they were converging on _him_ , leaving him blind and deaf and insensate, as though the real world where River called him was only a dream, background noise and colour and touch.

his reality was in front of him, a black space,

a rip in time, jagged-edged and dark,

sending him through time and space to a place

_Trenzalore_

the Doctor reached out blindly for River,

needing something,

 _anything_ to keep him anchored in _this_ time,

the Bone Meadows time

and place

he could hear her vaguely now, chanting,

“I’ve got you, sweetie, Doctor, I’ve got you...”

...but she sounded so far _away_ ,

two thousand years away...

and then he lost his grip on her hand and he was

 _falling_ , falling forever into a vortex of darkness

and swirling wind and wet and fear and pain

...and loss

 

_dark..._

 

It was dark, and raining hard, and he couldn’t tell how long he’d been in... transit? (which was frightening, he _should_ be able to tell)... but the Doctor could see, dimly, and the flashes of lightning helped. Except that the lightning wasn’t coming from the sky - or more properly from the ground to the sky, so many people got that wrong - no, it was coming from a mass of huddled figures on a little hill in the centre of a field. They were clustered around a tall, vaguely rectangular shape. “Doctor?” _What? River?_ She was here!

The Doctor slowly became aware of a warm pressure, River clinging to his hand. He used it to tug her closer; if she got lost here - wherever _here_ was - he wasn’t at all sure he could get her out, even supposing he himself could leave. Better for them to be together. Pulling out the sonic, he did a slow scan of the immediate area. _Aha_ , he thought, _there’s a tunnel in time and space here, like a mini-Time Vortex. All that’s needed to open it is a sonic twist_. He marked a large X in the turf and turned to River, pulling her to him and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, slipping an arm around his waist under his tweed, and he felt... comforted. “Shall we see what _that_ is?” he muttered, nodding at the lightning-wreathed bipeds on the hilltop. He could feel her nod, but he could also feel her trembling.

River Song, the woman who would sacrifice her very life for him - the woman whose indomitability was remarkable even for a human - was shaking like a leaf at the sight of some odd figures on a hill. River being _that_ frightened, well... her fear scared him more than any of this. “If you’d rather not, we can look for a way to leave here,” he offered, and she froze, took a deep breath, and shook her head.

She wasn’t quivering with terror anymore.

“Let’s go see,” she said in a quiet tone, indicating the large X he’d carved into the ground. “Is that your escape route?” He nodded, and she nodded back, once. “Good. Always a good idea to have one. Several, if you can manage it.” She held out a hand, and he took it.

They walked toward the little hill together.

When they got to where the ground began to slope upward, the Doctor paused, looking up. Did he dare use the sonic to scan the creatures? Taking a deep breath, he pulled it out, pointing it at the group on the hill. He started his scan, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw River glance at him.

Then all hell broke loose.

The group at the top of the hill parted, revealing a trio of humanoid figures in front of the rectangular bulk. It was difficult to see because most of the lightning flashes were gone now, but the Doctor got an impression of a tall man in a long dark coat, a curly-headed woman, and a much shorter woman with dark hair. But the creatures themselves... the Doctor shuddered, and he could feel River trembling beside him.

They were vaguely humanoid, some tall, with long faces, rounded bald skulls, long arms; others with no faces at all except mouths, wearing hats and frock coats. Nothing out of the ordinary really, but they made the Doctor shiver with atavistic fear nonetheless. “Turn,” one of the tall ones said, and the fact that he could hear the raspy voice from the bottom of the hill somehow frightened him all the more. “Turn,” the alien repeated, “Turn and run and forget.”

The Doctor and River turned to run, and even as they did, a small part of the Doctor’s mind rebelled, shouting at the rest of him to _go back, fight the whatever-it-is_.

The rest of him didn’t listen; it just _ran_.

They ran together, holding hands, back to the large X carved by sonic in the dark grass. The Doctor waved the sonic, and they leapt through the rent in time as it appeared. Falling, and the spinning, swirling wind, drier this time, and they forgot what they were running from. Forgot the aliens and the three humanoids on the hill and...

The Doctor looked at River from where he knelt beside her in the dirt, and smiled. “Hello,” he said, and she smiled back.

“Hello.” She reached out hesitantly and brushed his hair back from his face. His grin grew wider.

“I could grow to like this,” the Doctor admitted in a low tone, waving his arms to indicate the dig, the warm dry day, the two of them together in it.

“I thought you didn’t like archaeology?”

“I don’t. Silly business, most of it, counting potsherds and bones as though it meant something. But for _you_... this isn’t about broken bits of pottery or old bones. It’s about solving the puzzles of history, the stories and the people.” He smiled at her. “I quite like that.”

River smiled back. “Well then, here’s a puzzle for you. What object was once in this box? No, don’t scan it,” she said as he reached into his pocket for his sonic. “Just _feel_.” She took his hands and held them in hers, guiding them to the flat, hinged box as he closed his eyes, the better to feel as instructed..

_an echo of time, at least two millennia, pain and wet and fear and swirling wind, a vortex, so far away in time, so near in space... and lightning... but mostly the fear_

The Doctor opened his eyes.

“Well,” said River Song, “What did you feel?”

The Doctor hesitated. It would frighten her - hell, it frightened him in part because _she_ had been so scared there in the... the... he couldn’t remember - it would frighten her if he told her what he had felt from it.

_Spoilers..._

“Not much,” he said casually. “Just a sense that it’s very old.”

 

 


	5. Neverspace

_“He doesn't really know me yet. Now he never will.”_

_~River Song, The Big Bang_

 

 

“Bye bye, Pond.”

floating...

...or falling

or both

He floated, or fell, or both, in the neverspace between time and space and...

…and Earth 

Most of his travelling companions had come from Earth. Certainly the most recent of them had, except for Jack.

And maybe River.

She had said the when and the where were complicated. 

Earth wasn’t complicated, not really. The _people_ of Earth on the other hand... they were complicated.

And indomitable. 

Who had said that? Oh right. It had been _him_ , back when he was...

was... or would that be forward? No, _back_. He refused, absolutely refused to

allow his time sense to go all... all wibbly like this. Time was not the boss of him,

and no-time was also not the boss of him, and Amy would remember... wouldn’t she? 

She _would_ , he knew it, hadn’t he told her to remember, his forehead to hers, he _hated_ that, forcing his will on... like Donna, like... No! it hadn’t been like that, not with Amy, not with Craig, it was different, he wasn’t taking anything from them, not like he had with Donna. He never would, never _could_ , not anymore.

He had told Amy, with his lips and his mind

 and his soul and his hearts, told her how much

 he needed her to remember. She would. She must.

The Doctor floated (or fell, or both), and he remembered. Friends, nearly brothers, just the two of them, Theta and Koschei.

 They had lain on their backs, head to head, had lain on the

cool burnt-orange grass, and talked endlessly as children will.

Talked - as humans would have it - of ‘shoes and ships and sealing

wax’. Of everything that is, or was, or ever would be. It had been... lovely, childlike.

But then Koschei had changed, had become the Master, and _now_ , now that the Doctor knew _why_ the Master had... become what he had become... now he loved again, and forgave. No, that wasn’t right. He had _always_ loved the Master, even when he hated. But it had taken him a long time to forgive.

As though _he_ had any right to forgive anyone.

He had no right.

Not after Cass and the Sisterhood and the Ti...

Maybe he did though, because who better to forgive than one who

 needed forgiveness, craved it like food and drink, like air and love and...

and fish custard and... right then. _Focus, if you’re wandering in your mind,_

 _it’ll be harder for Amy to remember, and she_ must _remember. Because... because_  

It’s _lonely_ in here. Out here. Wherewhenever, it’s lonely.

The Lonely God, Reinette had called him. Lovely Reinette, brilliant and kind, he knew _that_ for all he’d only known her for a few hours. He always loved meeting famous humans, or their mythological figures. Silly humans, always thinking their gods were... well, _gods_. There had been Will and Nero and Cyrano, the Minotaur and Horus and Mordred, tortured Vincent and haunted Charlie and good old H.G, and Marco, and brave Harriet, and Al. Oh, Al was brilliant, even by human standards. And so _many_ others, and he’d loved - or at least _liked_ \- them all. Well, there had been one or two he never liked, and some... some who hated him.

As they should.

Liz hadn’t liked him much (not Liz Shaw, she’d been brilliant; the _other_ Liz,

Good Queen Bess), at least not the second time he’d met her (was it the third

for her? He couldn’t remember). And Vicky (not _that_ Vicky, Vicky the Queen of England,

maybe it was a queen thing, though Liz Ten had liked him all right, and...) Vicky

had never liked him at all. She’d created Torchwood to rid her planet of him.

That had been unkind of her.

Not as unkind - even cruel - as he himself had been to Jack.

Jack’s voice was tightly controlled, the face in his usual expression of frank sexual

appraisal, as it had been in Utopia, on Earth running from the Master. During the Year that

Never Was. Jack had kept the hurt inside, no matter what terrible things the Master had done to

him, he had never let it show, how much pain he felt at the hands of the Master, at the

biting and unforgiving judgement of the Doctor, whom Jack thought of as _friend_.

 

Foolish Jack, to think of the Doctor as his friend.

He had been a very bad friend, all because Jack was a _fact_.

He could’ve been a good friend to Jack. Could’ve been kind.

Could have shown his pride in the younger man. 

Been there to help during the 456 debacle.

But no, he’d been all Time Lord Victorious, a smug bastard, a coward, and it was a wonder Jack didn’t utterly despise him.

And Sarah Jane. And Martha.

Poor Martha. Brilliant in her own right, pining

after him, and all he could think of then was Rose.

He hadn’t been fair to her, to Martha, and she’d saved

the world, more than once, really, her compassion

shining through always, even as she left him...

Yes, Martha, even Joan and Timothy, there with Martha in 1913. Lynda-with-a-Y on the GameStation. The humans in the bus on Midnight - and there it had backfired horribly. And many, many others. He’d treated them so badly, not like people at all, like favourite pets, like the Daleks had treated Davros in the end, and...

“You turn them into weapons,” Davros had said,

with the implication that at least he, Davros, was honest

about what he had created. And he was right, he _was_ , _too cowardly_

_to do my own dirty work, foisting it off on Sarah and Martha and River Song..._

 

...River had died for him, would die for him

for him and thousands of others she didn’t know...

...because she loved him. She knew who he was, _what_ he was,

what he had been during the... What he had _done_.

And yet she loved him.  _She knew his name._

Nobody knew his name.

Maybe he had none, his existence fading 

he had nobody... no body... no existence... 

 _No! Stop it, Time Lord,_ he told himself _. Focus. She, Ri... no, Amy. Amy loves you, she will remember you back into existence, she will. She_ must _, she_...

 _Stop. Calm. No need to panic. If Amy doesn't remember, you can just float here, in this neverspace, remembering..._ because it hadn’t all been bad. Some of it, most of it... had been lovely. Brilliant, fantastic, _molto bene_ and cool. Before and after the War.

He had hated himself after the Time War. Still did, often, the Dream Lord had been proof of that.

 The burnt-orange grass again. _Burnt_ , he thought dully, _all burnt_.

As he would now burn, burn away this self, the self who had caused all this.

Caused his world to burn. Odd that, odd that _this_ self, the one born on his beloved Earth, the

one who couldn’t remember at first... the peaceful one who would steal but who

 _would not kill._.. odd that this self was the one to become the one to burn his

home. And he would do it again, were it needed.

He would hate it, but would do it again.

 _Right then. Good memories. There must_ be _some._

A new travelling companion...  little Susan had known what it was all about of course, from the beginning. Romana, Time Lady though she had been, was fresh out of the Academy and unused to the ways of the greater Universe. But Ian and Barbara hadn’t wanted to come initially, and some of the others as well, like Dodo. Some had stowed away intentionally, silly annoying Adric and beautiful Leela, and some accidentally, like Sarah.

Sweet, feisty Sarah Jane, he was so glad he’d seen her again. He’d had to leave her, there in... oh dear, it _had_ been Aberdeen, hadn’t it? She had been so angry, and more hurt, but she had forgiven him, continued the work of helping to protect Earth from aliens, just as Jo had helped protect Earth from the depredations of its own people. He loved them still, he’d seen them just recently, when he had been dead. Or, well, when they thought he’d been dead, Sarah and Jo and their young friends and children and grandchildren, he hadn’t been really, not exactly, and... well, his mind was still wandering, wasn’t it, but at least these memories were pleasant ones.

He took a deep breath (or would have, had there been air or lungs or a respiratory bypass, but it _felt_ like taking a deep breath) and willed himself to remember more of the good things.

The good _people_.

Jamie. Oh Jamie, he’d been a one, hadn’t he? Some of the Doctor’s favourite friends were Scottish. Well... two of them. And lots of others from other places... Vislor and Ace and Peri, and Polly and Ben and Nyssa, and Melanie and Grace and even Mickey. Who’d’ve thought Mickey Smith of all people would be one of his favourite humans ever? Even if he had lost him for a time, as he had Rose. Lovely Rose, but it was good - wasn’t it? wasn’t it good? - that she’d had the time away, time to grow without him, time to... to _become_ a Rose his meta-crisis duplicate could stay with. He hoped, he _always_ hoped, that it had been good for her, that time in Pete’s World. If he had had a throat in this neverspace, there would be a lump in it, thinking of Rose, and Donna.

At least they hadn’t died, not permanently...

...never permanently, the ones who died, he...

he couldn’t bear it, Katarina and Sara and Adric

Roz and Lucie and Tamsin, Astrid and Reinette 

_Cass..._

And River. 

not one line, don't change one line

_No! Not one line, she wouldn’t want you to! She_

_would want you to stay, to do everything within_

_your power to stay, to come back. So think!_

Remember.

 _Remember_... Susan’s sweet smile, Astrid’s sacrifice, the look on Sarah Jane’s face as he left her. Jamie’s quick grin, and Jack’s friendly leer, sunlight on Amy’s ginger hair, and moonlight on Jo’s blonde. The scent of River’s golden curls... the whoosh of the time rotor... and the bluest blue that ever was...

He saw a flash of a book in that bluest-blue, as if he had eyes. He heard a voice, as if he had ears. It was coming from _outside_ of him, not a memory. _Amy’s_ voice.

 

_Something old, something new,_

_Something borrowed, something blue!_

 

The Doctor dropped to his knees, there on the glass console room floor. _Legs_ , he thought numbly. _Legs again. That’s nice._ He began to pat at himself, checking to make sure his body was still there. _Head, shoulders, knees, toes, wasn’t there a children’s rhyme on Earth? and... oh! Amy! How could I forget Amy? Well, in fairness, I have been nonexistent for... for... well, for some time._

He got creakily to his feet. Felt a bit like regeneration sickness, really, having been remembered out of the neverspace. But if he was going to a wedding - and the rhyme that called him here suggested that he was - he had better dress for the occasion.

 

\--/--

 

Amy and Rory were safely married, the Girl and the Boy Who Waited. The dancing had been brilliant, the happy couple, his Ponds... happy. And the Doctor was happy for them.

But lonely. Again.

Nothing for it but to go. He could manage on his own.

“Sometimes you need someone to stop you,” Donna had said.

“And there’s no-one to stop you,” Adelaide had told him. 

They had both been right. And he was _lonely_. 

So when he spotted River’s diary - _their_ diary - left on a table, he picked it up and slipped it into the pocket with his sonic. Wouldn’t do to be seen slipping out with a wedding present. But he took it out of his pocket when he got outside. He wanted to... to hold it, remain in contact with it, like a lifeline to the real world.

And then she was there. He told her he hadn’t peeked, and he hadn’t, not really. It wasn’t his fault that certain words had leapt out at him, and it wasn’t as though he had actually _read_ any of it.

“Are you married, River?” He really wanted to know, because he suspected that she _was_ , and he... he wanted to know.

“Are you asking?” Her voice was warm, and flirtatious, and ever-so-slightly mocking.

“Yes.”

“Yes.” Okay, now the mocking was more than ever-so-slightly, but... oh, wait, what if she thought...?

“No,” he said, helplessly. “Hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me or asking if you were married?”

“Yes.” Definitely mocking now.

“No, but was that yes or yes?”

“ _Yes_.” This yes was different, not really mocking anymore, more like a... a mystery, a puzzle.

A challenge.

He’d take that challenge. “River. Who are you?”

Her face softened, just a little. “You're going to find out very soon now,” she said in an almost gentle tone. “And I'm sorry. But that's when everything changes.”

And then she pushed a button on her vortex manipulator and was gone.

 _Right then, put a good face on it,_ _Time Lord_ , he said to himself. _You didn’t really think she’d come with you. Not with all her spoilers_. He opened the TARDIS door, _(bluest blue that ever was)_ and busied himself with the controls. River had said he would find out very soon now. He could manage by himself until then, he was sure of it.

Well... mostly sure. Almost completely positively sure.

Maybe.

It was just as well that the Ponds came with him in the end. Just as well for him, selfish man that he was, needing someone to stop him. But they said they wanted to come, and he needed them, and so... and so he let them.

 

 

 


	6. A Change in Perception

_“The day's coming when I'll look into that man's eyes - my Doctor - and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me.”_

_~River Song, The Impossible Astronaut_

 

He had hurt her.

The Doctor had hurt River, deliberately, lashing out with his best weapons, his words. Because he was afraid. And she was an easy target; frustrated by her spoilers, she couldn’t - or wouldn’t - strike back. She just stood there, backed up against the console, her mouth tight with anger, her expression otherwise blank.

But she appeared to have forgiven him moments later, flirting and teasing as they figured out the puzzle of the Presidents’ names. Together. She forgave him so quickly, so completely, as though it was something she always did.

Something she always had to do.

She said she hated him, when he introduced her as Mrs. Robinson, but he knew she didn’t. They were teasing, flirting again, as they did later with the hot-when-he’s-clever face. And later still, flirting so much that Amy scolded them for it, fighting the Silence, while all he wanted just then was to feel River’s soft curls against the back of his neck again. She kept up the constant flirting, no matter how much he’d hurt her.

Later yet, he took his leave of her.

“You could come with us.” _I really want you to,_ he thought, _but..._

“I escape often enough, thank you. And I have a promise to live up to. You'll understand soon enough.” _Oh. Well, right then. I thought... no. Of course not. Put that good face on it again, Time Lord._

“Okay,” he said in as offhandedly cheerful a voice as he could manage, backing away from her. No, not away from her, of course, toward the TARDIS. “Up to you. See you next time. Call me!”

“What?” She sounded surprised. River _never_ sounded surprised. Intriguing. “That's it? What's the matter with you?”

He turned around, sauntered back. Two could play at the flirting game. Hadn’t he proved that he could keep up with her? “Have I forgotten something?”

“Oh...” she said. “Shut up.” And she kissed him.

 _Soft_ , was the first reaction that flew through the Doctor’s head as River kissed him, then, _soft, warm, hair, lips, skin, oh!_

When she put her arms around his waist and moaned softly into his mouth, he panicked. _No, she’s human, and she’s... we can’t do this!_

And broke away.

“Right,” he said. “Okay. Interesting.”

“What’s wrong? You act as though we’ve never done that before.”

“We haven’t,” he said. _We_ have _, but it was a dream, or a quick friendly kiss, not like..._

River’s face went... blank. Not her usual tight control, or the calm face with the anguished eyes, just... _nothing_. “We haven’t,” she said, her voice as blank and uncomprehending as her face. It wasn’t a question.

“Oh, look at the time. Must be off. But it was very nice.” _Oh, more than nice, River, if only..._ “ It was good. It was... unexpected. You know what they say, ‘There's a first time for everything.’" _Please, River, don’t look that way, I_ can’t _, not with a short-lived human, not for...I..._ He couldn’t bear the expression on her face anymore, that terrible _numb_ look, as though she’d lost something as precious to her as her very life.

And so he ran away.

He thought about her. She would pop into his mind whether he wanted her to or not, and even through the terrible and wonderful things that happened over the next little while, the Doctor thought of River Song.

He wondered if she thought of him.

So when he needed River, when he sent Rory to ask her to come, and she didn’t... he was furious, and sad and _hurt_. He’d thought she would come, if it was important enough to send her a message on the psychic paper, why _wouldn’t_ she? She must hate him for what he’d done, for hurting her by not trusting her, for running away, hate him so much that she wouldn’t come when he called, not even for Amy and Rory. He hadn’t thought she could be so cold, not to her friends. Maybe to _him_ ; he’d hurt her with his words and his running, but to refuse Rory...

The Doctor spent the entire time at Demon’s Run - whether talking with the baby or humiliating that horrible woman’s colonel, or discovering that the baby was human plus... or not a baby at all... holding a dying girl who remembered him but whom he didn’t _know_ \- he spent the entire time with that rage and hurt simmering in the back of his mind. And when River did finally show up, she _mocked_ him.

He’d had enough.

“Where the hell have you been? Every time you've asked I have been there! Where the hell were you today?” _Even before I met you,_ he thought bitterly as she began to berate him, _even before I met you I came when you called. One little note on psychic paper and I was_ there _for you, I had to watch you d... but you wouldn’t do the same, you..._  He stood there, fuming, furious with her, as she spoke of the people of the Gamma Forests and how they thought of him. And he remembered; Lorna had thought of him as a warrior. “Who are you?” he blurted, and she skipped backward, mocking him again, he thought.

“Oh look,” River said in a cheery tone, “Your cot. I haven’t seen that in a very long while.”

The Doctor stalked toward her. She wasn’t going to avoid the question again. Not now, not after everything that had happened today, after everything she’d said to him. After she had refused to come, and said that today he would find out who she was. _She owed him this._ “No. You tell me. Tell me who you _are_.”

Her face softened and she smiled, taking his hand. “I _am_ telling you. Can’t you read?” He could, and he did, and... and it was all _there_ , on the prayer leaf that Lorna had made for baby Melody.

Melody Pond was River Song.

 _But that means_ , said his mind, and stopped.

“Hello.” _It means she’s_ not _just human, she’s part Time Lord, and..._

“Hello.” Another smile.

“But that means...” _That means we can, we have, we_ do _, and..._

“I’m afraid it does.” _Her smile is warm now, indulgent._

_Happy._

The Doctor giggled as they flirted. He understood now, she’d _had_ to stay away, because of _not one line_. If she had been here, _this_ her, the River-Song her, they might’ve saved _that_ her, Melody-Pond her. And that would have ruined everything, at least for her it would.

And then he realised what he had to do; he had to go to her, the her he had run away from.

“Vastra and Jenny, 'til the next time. Rory and Amy, I know where to find your daughter and on my life she will be safe! River, get them all home.” And he ran again, away from _this_ River, yes, away from the look on Amy’s face, yes, but more importantly, _to River_.

When the TARDIS materialised in Stormcage, just outside River’s cell, the Doctor peeked out, and the giddiness left him almost at once. River stood in the open doorway of her cell, still with that blank, numb expression on her face, and even though he knew it had only been a minute or so for her - he’d almost met himself, he’d cut it so close - his hearts clenched at the sight of her.

River’s eyes slowly focussed on him, and she smiled. The Doctor could practically _feel_ the effort it took her from here, and the smile looked false besides. “Hello, sweetie,” she said, and if her voice nearly broke on the last word, neither of them mentioned it.

He had to tell her, he _must_ tell her, because he still - even weeks later for him - could not bear to see her like this. He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on her face. “I’ve forgotten something,” he admitted quietly. “Something - some _one_ \- important, so _important_ , River, the most important person in the universe, and so very precious to me.” He began to walk toward her, eyes still on hers, and as he got close he could see the tears standing in her eyes.

“Yes.” It was a whisper, but it sounded like that other _yes_ , the one from the garden outside Amy’s and Rory’s wedding. The _yes_ full of mystery, and promise. And one tear dropped.

The Doctor kissed the tear away, and then he wrapped his arms around her, and just held on. He didn’t realise he was crying too, and muttering apologies into her hair, until she pulled away to look at him. “Where have you come from, just now, before here?” she asked, her face serious, and he swallowed.

“Demon’s Run,” he said, and rushed on. “I’m sorry, River, so sorry, I said terrible things to you, and before, in the console room, I--”

“Hush,” River interrupted, and put her fingertips to his lips. “None of that, not now.” He kissed her fingers and her breath hitched, then she reached up to pull him down, as she had a few minutes ago for her and a few weeks for him, and before, in his dreams.

But before she could, he kissed her.

It was a gentle kiss, or it started that way. It swiftly grew into something more... primal, nearly desperate in intensity and _need_. The Doctor broke away, carefully, and didn’t miss the momentary flash of - was it _hurt_? - on River’s face. He laid his forehead on hers. “Come with me,” he said, and the flash of pain and loss disappeared. “I know you’ve a promise to keep, but well, she _is_ a time machine. She would bring you back whenever you needed.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt, that Sexy would bring her back. _Where she needs to be_ , he thought, _or where she is needed_...

“For a little while, my love,” River whispered, “But not forever. I can’t...”

The Doctor nodded. “Not one line,” he said, and smiled at her evident confusion. “You said that to me once, asked me not to re-write one line of our time together. I won’t. River, I--”

“What about Amy? ” River said in a quiet voice. “And Rory.”

“River.” The Doctor was very serious now. “I told you; I had forgotten the most important thing in the universe. That important thing - _you_ \- trumps your parents’ wishes.” He knew his troubled look matched hers. “I love them, River, but I--”

She interrupted him by placing her lips on his again. “I love them too,” she whispered against his mouth, and deepened the kiss. She sighed and pulled him closer, and he found his hands in her hair, as he kissed her back for all he was worth. They stood there like that, his hands tangled in her hair, hers digging into his hips, snogging rather desperately, until she sensed something and pulled away. “The guards will be coming, my love,” she said, her smile teasing. “Shall we give them a chase? Or just ‘softly and silently vanish away’?” She laughed at him then, at the expression on his face. “You think I don’t know my _Alice_? What kind of Englishwoman do you take me for?”

The Doctor sputtered in mock indignation, and tapped River lightly on the nose. “One who was born on an asteroid, in the fifty-second century, in the middle of nowhere. That kind of Englishwoman. Now run,” he finished, grabbing her hand as the prisoner-escape klaxon started blaring. She scooped up her copy of the blue diary, and ran with him into the TARDIS...

...which vanished away.

They collapsed, giggling, into the jump seat by the console, and the Doctor took a moment to reflect that this was what he loved to do best. The running, the narrow escapes, the giddy laughter with a friend. Or _more_ than a friend, because she was kissing him again, breathlessly this time, and he could hear himself moaning her name as she did his.

And then River Song made love to her Doctor, and taught him to love her in return.

\--/-- 

The Doctor felt that he could watch River for hours. Sleeping, fighting, digging in the dirt - it made no difference what she was doing; he just wanted to watch her. Right now she was sleeping, sated from their loving, and he was watching, so he saw her smile as she woke, before she opened her eyes. “Hello, sweetie,” she said as her lips curved, and then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and rested his head on her bare chest, listening to her hearts _(hearts!_ he thought _, two of them!)_ beating. “How is it I never knew? That you’re part Time Lord, I mean. I could usually... sense them.”

“Not enough for you to sense, I expect, unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. You can feel it now, can’t you?” He nodded against her skin.

“And the hearts? Oh, of course. You’ve got a perception filter, haven’t you?” He sat up.

“Well,” she drawled, “Not on me.” He could feel his face grow warm at the thought, and River laughed. “I do love you all flustered, my love,” she said in a tone that made him go hot all over, and then she reached out and pulled him down to kiss her. She smiled against his mouth and murmured his name, and he found his hands in her hair again, as they made love for the second - or was it the third? - time in the past... _well, time is irrelevant here,_ he thought, and then his mind clicked off as he concentrated on loving River.

“What will you tell them?” she asked the Doctor later, as they sat companionably in the jump seat later, watching the Time Rotor as though it were a campfire.

He sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I... they--”

“--You _could_ tell them,” River interrupted, and she looked as though she was bracing herself for the worst.

“I know.” She looked unconvinced. “I _know_ , River.” He took a deep breath. “But I can’t think about it now.” The Doctor knew River could sense him getting uncomfortable, and he was relieved when she smiled at him. _Best change the subject,_ he thought. _Spend some time on the adventure and the running._

“Right then,” he said briskly, standing up and fiddling with console controls. “Where to, River Song? The sixth moon of Avalon is lovely this time of year.”


	7. Heel, Boy

_“Is River Song your wife? 'Cause she's someone from your future. And the way she talks to you, I've never seen anyone do that. She's kind of like, you know, ‘Heel, boy.’”_

_~Amy Pond, Time of Angels_

 

 _We never did get to the sixth moon of Avalon,_ the Doctor thought wildly as he and River ran. It had been quite the adventure, though they had not only not gone to Avalon Six, they hadn’t yet seen the people River’d talked of in the diner. No Jim the Fish, no Easter Island... Of course, their timelines’d been running in sync since he’d gone back for her at Stormcage, so he supposed they _couldn’t_. Not yet.

They burst through the doors of the TARDIS, and she dematerialised rather faster than usual, so as not to catch the Harrowkind Horde in her field. No sense in killing them all, since they didn’t have to. “Hi honey,” the Doctor said to his ship. “We’re home.” River beamed at him, and drew him in for a kiss as they made their way to the console to fly her.

Flying the TARDIS with River was very nearly as much fun as it had been to fly her with all his friends, as he had the last time he’d seen Davros. He shuddered lightly at the thought of what the Kaled had become, and River looked up at him, concerned. Throwing her a little grin, he flipped a lever and then went around the console to her, pushing buttons and twisting dials as he went. He tapped River on the nose and she smiled at him, then, without looking, flipped a switch of her own, and they hung onto each other, laughing, as the TARDIS spun off into the Vortex.

When they landed, the Doctor cracked open the door and peeked out. “Ooo...” he said, and River came to join him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder. “Columns, River,” he said, “What era? Ancient Greece?” She nodded against his shoulder and smiled up at him.

“One of my favourites, my love,” she said. “I’m going to change. The clothes always look very comfortable.” And she disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS, looking for the wardrobe.

The Doctor shrugged. River was nothing if not competent; she would find him in the... he checked outside... temple. To Aphrodite, if he wasn’t mistaken. Smoothing his bowtie - not everyone had to change into period dress - he stepped outside the blue box and into the flowering meadow before the temple.

He was chatting with the maidens of the temple when he heard the commotion outside, and a warrior wearing very little in the way of armour - or clothes for that matter - dashed in. “Priestess,” the pretty young man shouted. The priestess gave him a severe look and he took a deep breath. “Priestess, the Medusa has come! She didn’t turn anyone to stone, but--”

The Doctor groaned, cutting off the man’s words. _How could they possibly mistake River Song for the M... oh, the hair. Right then_. “Excuse me, Your Holiness,” he said to the priestess, who inclined her head politely. “May I speak with the... temple Guardsman?” She inclined her head again. “Thank you, Your Holiness. Now,” he went on, turning to the young man, “I am the Doctor. Why do you think the Medusa has come?”

The Guardsman bowed. “Oh, sainted Physician,” he said, “A woman has come with eyes of stone and hair of serpents! If she is not Medusa of the Gorgons, who else could she be?”

“My own personal Siren,” the Doctor murmured, not as much to himself as he’d intended. He found this out as the priestess snapped her fingers and he was wrestled to the floor by the Guardsman and a half-dozen more who materialised silently out from behind columns.

“And then I said, ‘My own personal Siren,’ River, and you’d think they’d _know_ that the Sirens were some of the most beautiful women in their own mythology,” the Doctor was saying earnestly. The Guardsmen had left them tied to a bronze ring protruding from the top of a large rock on a stone cliff jutting out into the bay, and River was working their hands free of the rope.

“Mmph,” she said grumpily. _We’ll, it wasn’t my fault they’d gagged her, was it?_ he thought, equally grumpily. _Really, she doesn’t actually have the powers the mythological Sirens were said to have possessed; she can’t sing sailors to their doom or turn them into pigs or... no, wait, Circe hadn’t been a Siren, she was a sorceress, and..._ the rope came free and he turned to look at River.

And backed away at the slightly murderous glint in her eye. _Eyes of stone indeed_ , he thought, _flint, perhaps, although flint was more properly a form of quartz crystal than actual_ stone _, or maybe... uh yes. Granite. Granite will do nicely to describe the hardness currently in River’s eyes._ He continued to back away until his heels hit the edge of the sea swept cliff, and windmilled his arms to keep his balance.

River took pity on him, perhaps, or just wanted to kill him herself, because she let out a theatrical sigh and grabbed him by his bow tie, hauling him away from the edge. She shoved him none too gently away from the cliff, although the shove wasn’t nearly as hard as it could have been if she had really wanted to kill him.

“What,” she nearly snarled, “were you _thinking_?” _No, even granite doesn’t quite cover it,_ he thought.

“Umm... I wasn’t?” The Doctor said hopefully. Hopefully in that he hoped if he was honest, she’d stop _looking_ at him that way, as though she’d like to throw him off the cliff herself. There was no change in her expression, so he rushed on. “I wasn’t thinking about _them_ , River, or what they might think. I was thinking about you and your face and all that hair - I love your hair really - and... and... it just slipped out.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry.” He peeked up at her from under his fringe, and was rewarded by the sight of her lips twitching as she fought a smile.

River relented, and smiled in earnest. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, “Why do I let you out alone? You could have waited for me, you know.” She reached up and smoothed his hair back from his face. “And stop pouting. Don’t think I didn’t notice you chatting up that high priestess.”

“River! I... she... I was just...” He was helpless against her.

“She’s a priestess of _Aphrodite_ , sweetie. Goddess of - ahem! - shall we call it love?” She grinned a wicked little grin at him. “Perhaps I should say that I noticed her chatting _you_ up.” The Doctor wondered vaguely if his ears and cheeks were really as bright a red as they felt, and gave her an evil grin of his own.

“River, you bad girl. Such a filthy mind. Shouldn’t like that... kinda do a bit.” River laughed and launched herself at him, throwing her arms round his neck. And the Doctor found himself wrestled to the ground for the second time in the last hour.

He kinda liked that too.

 

\--/--

 

River was restless.

The Doctor could feel it every time he looked at her, and because he loved to watch her, he could feel it most of the time.

 _Most of the time_ , he thought, _is a fairly profound thing for a Time Lord._ And most of the time, River was restless. It wasn’t quite the same kind of restlessness as he himself felt when it was time for an adventure; it was different, though no less urgent. But River always went along on his adventures cheerfully enough, and he wanted to do the same for her... if he could figure out what to do to cure her restlessness.

“Any ideas, old girl?” he asked the ship, and she buzzed her time rotor at him, then dinged a tone at a screen on the other side of the console. He hurried around and saw what appeared on the screen. “Ooo,” he said appreciatively. “Is that a party hat? Oh, and cake! Is it River’s birthday, dear?” The rotor whirred. “Right then,” the Doctor said, “Where shall we go for her birthday? I know it’s not the one Rory told me about, not while we’re still in sync.” He paused to think for a moment, and held up one hand when the TARDIS whirred at him again. “No, no, don’t tell me... I know!”

The Doctor started going through lists of planets he wanted to show River Song... she might rather like Arkateen V, although it may well be too... calm for her taste. Maybe Chimeria, or Diadem or Daril-- _no!_ he thought rather desperately, _not Darillium_. The TARDIS hummed consolingly and the Doctor took a deep breath. Right then. Eden, perhaps; it would certainly be exciting. Messaline, he thought he could handle terraformed Messaline with River at his side, and she would love the archaeological possibilities. Koorharn might be nice, he had taken Martha there to ice-skate and if he was going to take River skating on the Thames in this body, he’d better get some practice in. Sto, he’d never seen the planet itself, just several of its residents on the _Titanic_ , or possibly Terradon. The planets and moons that River might like were endless, so the Doctor went off in search of her.

He found her upside down, doing some sort of complicated stretch in a zero-gee room he hadn’t even known he had in the TARDIS. “Does it hurt?” he asked her curiously, and she laughed.

“Not in a zero-gee field, my love. And only marginally in Earth’s gravity.” She gathered herself into a ball and then starfished, legs and arms out, so she was facing him properly, slowly turning in place. “Care to join me?” she asked in _that_ voice, the voice that made his knees all wibbly.

Not so wibbly he couldn’t launch himself at her though, and he collided with her at lips and hands and hips, sending them both gently into the wall behind her as they kissed. “Oh my River,” he murmured against her mouth, “You are so very dear to me...”

Later, after, as they floated together in the centre of the space, River stretched against him, making his knees wibbly again. Not that wibbly knees mattered in the zero-gee field, but it was distracting. “So, my love,” she said, “That was a lovely interlude. But I expect you came to find me for a different reason?”

“I want to take you out, for your birthday.”

“My birthday,” River said, and it wasn’t quite a question. “But... we’re in the Vortex, you silly man; it’s... how would you know when my birthday is in _here_?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” he assured her. “But the old girl would, and did, and told me it was your birthday. I’ve pamphlets for different places you might like to see.”

“You...” River choked slightly, and she threw her arms around him, sending them both careening around the room. “Oh, you dear, sweet man. Of course it’s my birthday, if the TARDIS says so,” she murmured into his ear. “But I’d much rather be surprised as to where.”

The Doctor wondered, for just a moment, if taking her to the Frost Fair now - complete with Stevie Wonder - would cause a paradox. He felt a surge of... was it disapproval?... from the TARDIS and told himself severely to forget it. “All right then,” he said. “Are you in the mood for danger? Or something calmer?”

“I told you, my love,” she said, and shoved off a wall so they went sailing toward the door. “Surprise me.” She let him go, somersaulted neatly through the door and landed on her feet like a cat, leaving the Doctor to flounder toward the doorway. “Oh, and my love? Do be sure to tell me whether to wear my heels or my gun. Or both.” She laughed and blew him a kiss.

When the Doctor finally made it into the normal-gee corridor, River was gone, and which way he didn’t know. “Right, old girl,” he said, fondly patting the door frame, “you decide, all right?” He felt a wave of what felt like assent, and an impression of high heels and a top hat, and decided that the TARDIS was taking them dancing. “Thanks, dear. Would you tell River, too?”

He could have sworn his ship _giggled_.

Much as he and River giggled, later, running home from the dance. Liz Eight threw a great party, even by the standards of the twenty-sixth century. Dancing in the ballroom, hyper-pool in the billiard room, and four-dee Scrabble in the lounge. River had remarked that all they needed was a candlestick and they’d have a game of Cluedo, and a robot butler solemnly handed her a lovely silver one. And then went off in search of a revolver, a lead pipe, a rope, a knife, and a spanner.

It was at that point that _their_ giggling started.

Before that, it had been all tangoing with rose stems in their teeth, or River leaning suggestively over the billiard table - the slit up the side of the midnight blue dress was scandalously high - or (by some amazing coincidence, and the Doctor wouldn’t call it _cheating_... exactly) the word _Raxacoricofallapatorius_ on a quadruple-word score. When the scoring computer pointed out diffidently that _Raxacoricofallapatorius_ was a proper noun and therefore an illegal play, the Doctor explained earnestly - and very fast - that every word was / is / will-be a proper noun to some entity or other, somewhere in the multiverse. The scoring computer threw up its metaphorical hands at that, and retired to sulk in a corner with a synthesiser from the band.

And so the party broke up; with the band synthesiser-less, and the scoring computer offline, and only seven pool cues available, Liz Eight clapped her hands and declared the party over. _‘Thanks,’_ she’d said, _‘had a lovely time, thanks for coming, and now, Doctor,’_ (here her eyes had gotten hard and glinty) _‘would you and your lady-friend like to fix this mess? Or spend some time in that dungeon I had restored last week?’_

They chose the former.

The scoring computer was really very responsive to the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and the robo-butler left off searching for Mrs Peacock. The synthesiser was still muttering to itself in little squawks in a corner, but Liz allowed as how that wasn’t their fault; she was sure she’d seen a Silurian with a perception filter scurrying out of the ballroom just before the synthesiser had its tantrum. Liz shooed them away and they ran, laughing and gasping, to the TARDIS.

“It’s time for me to go back, my love,” River said sadly later that night. “But I will see you again, sooner than you think.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead, and handed him a newspaper. It had a picture on the front page of a series of crop circles that spelled out ‘Doctor’. “Have you seen this? Looks like someone’s trying to get your attention.”


	8. Lessons From Berlin

_“Well. I was on my way to this gay gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled, when I suddenly thought, ‘Gosh. The Third Reich's a bit rubbish. I think I'll kill the Fuehrer.’ Who's with me?”_

_~River Song, Let’s Kill Hitler_

River insisted that the Doctor should take her back to Stormcage, and - reluctantly - he did. He wanted her to stay, but, well... not one line. And if she wasn’t with him in the TARDIS, she couldn’t make him go and deal with her parents just yet.

He wasn’t ready.

The Doctor knew he couldn’t find baby Melody for them. He _knew_ that; it would change everything, and frankly, keeping River’s timeline the way she remembered it overrode everything in his mind. Even Amy. So he wasn’t ready, and he went to play in the timelines to distract himself.

Until the answer phone message from Amy.

After that, the Doctor knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to face them. His Ponds.

And when he did, they had brought a friend. But she was a friend who made Amy look calm and reasonable by comparison; this Mels was - for all she appeared to be Amy’s age - a hyperactive and angry adolescent. With a gun. Which she used to shoot the TARDIS.

 _His_ TARDIS.

So they ended up in Berlin, on the cusp of war, and everything went all to hell. The old girl wasn't the only person who’d been shot, because Mels had been too. _No, no no no no, I’m not_ that _angry with her_ , the Doctor thought at the universe, _she doesn’t have to_ die _for it!_

“When I was little,” she said _(as though she’s not still little,_ the Doctor thought wildly, _just a child!)_ “I was going to marry you...”

“Good idea. Let’s get married. You stay alive and I’ll marry you. Deal? Deal?” _Please, Mels, I can’t let them lose someone else they love, not now. Stay with me!_

“Shouldn’t you ask my parents’ permission?” she asked, and he thought they were going to lose her right there, right then, because this sounded like she was already heading into delirium. But he promised anyway, lied to her like he had to Lorna, to make it easier for her. Even through the lump in his throat, because if Amy and Rory lost someone else right now, he wasn’t sure he could bear it. They’d never forgive him.

“As soon as you’re well,” he promised her _(if you_ get _well)_ , “I’ll get them on the phone.”

“Might as well do it now,” Mels said, and took a breath. “Since they’re both right here.”

 _‘They’re both right here?’ They’re both right here! But that means.._.

_That means that Mels is..._

_Mels is..._

_Melody Pond._

_And that means she’s_ not _dying, she’s... bloody hell!_

“Back back back,” the Doctor shouted at Amy and Rory. “Get back!”

Then things happened very fast, even by the Doctor’s standards. Because River Song... _this_ River Song, when she first regenerated... she was programmed to kill him. That horrible Kovarian woman had said so, River herself had said so; they had stolen the baby away to train her, _program_ her, for that one thing.

And so he had to tidy up, while Amy and Rory were distracted by the regeneration effects. There were far too many guns in this place for his taste, even on a normal day, which this was definitely _not_. And who knew what awful things this programmed River might have in store for him; he had to... to psychopath-proof the room, and quickly.

 _Not that she’s a psychopath, not really, she’s more of a sociopath, and it’s not her fault, she’s been programmed..._ All this went through his mind rapidly as he unloaded guns and replaced them and so forth, and then...

...and then the change was complete and she wasn’t Mels anymore, she was River. And she was _beautiful_.

And she was trying to kill him.

He had known she would, ever since Demon’s Run he’d known it. But he hadn’t expected the lipstick, and he hadn’t expected it to hurt. Not just his body, but his hearts, having River Song look at him with such... coldness. That hurt almost more than the Judas Tree poison. _Not her fault, not her fault, she can’t help it.._. it was a mantra he repeated in his mind, even as he talked with the Voice Interface and changed his clothes – yes, yes, he was wasting time, but time was not the boss of him, and maybe some small part of River would like him in the tuxedo and take pity on him, and the sonic cane was _cool_ \- and got ready to confront her.

But when he left the TARDIS, they were hurting her.

He couldn’t bear it, they were _hurting_ her, giving her hell with some sort of angry red torture beam, and it _wasn’t her fault_.

“Don't you touch her! Do not harm her in any way!” Even as he bantered with the Tesselecta, the back of his mind kept saying, _Oh River, not your fault, I’m so sorry, please River, so sorry, if it weren’t for me, you said it yourself at Demon’s Run, if it weren’t for me, none of this would ever... I’m so sorry_... over and over and _over_ again. It was hard to concentrate, he was dying and he couldn’t... he couldn’t... but they were talking about the Silence now, and he had to _know_.

 _Lonely God indeed_ , he thought bitterly as the Tesselecta told him what the Silence was. _Not lonely enough, apparently_. He convulsed again, kidneys failing now, and the Tesselecta began to torture River once more. _No, nonononono, no, stop it! She can’t help it, it’s not her fault, stop it!_ “Amy, Rory! Can you hear me?”

They could, and he breathed a sigh of relief even as he pleaded with them to save their daughter, save River. And when they did, it was _her_ turn, River’s. She had to save them, his Ponds, he couldn’t anymore, she had to... she _must_...

“Please,” he said, weakly. _Oh, so frightened, my River, my... please, you have to help them, I know you can, somewhere in there you_ want _to, you love them..._ “Now we have to save your parents. Don't run. Now I know you're scared.” _So scared, my River Song..._ “But never run when you're scared. Rule 7. _Please_.”

She _was_ scared, he could see it through his own fear, and of what he wasn’t sure. Afraid of the Silence, of _him_ , of the Tesselecta, of the whole situation. But she was trying so _hard_ not to be scared, to live up to her training. The Doctor felt a moment of blackest fury for what terrible things the Silence must have done to her to instil that training, but... no. No, he must be calm for her, push the anger back so he could get through to her. _Please, River, please help them. Please._

But then she was gone.

And then they were there, all three of them, Amy and Rory and River, and the Doctor was so _tired_. It hurt, it always hurt, dying did, and this time he wouldn’t regenerate... but... Now he had to talk to River. She knelt over him, and she looked almost like herself.

 _curls wild around her face  
a gentle expression  
still so scared, my River  
because you’re _ not _River,_  
not yet, find her...

“Find her,” the Doctor whispered. “Find River Song and tell her something from me...”

“Tell her what?” She leaned in to hear; his voice was fading.

“Tell her I...”

_I’m so sorry, River_

_So sorry... I wish..._

Then she was _there_ , and glowing and... no!

“River. No. What are you doing?” _I know what you’re doing, and it’s too much, don’t!_

“Hello, sweetie,” River said, and kissed him.

_Golden light..._

_Too much, it’s too much, River, no..._

_Don’t..._

 

\--/--

 

“He said no-one could save him. But he must have known I could.”

He had known. Well, he had _suspected_ she could. What he hadn’t known - hadn’t dared to hope - was that she _would_. Not while she was still thinking of herself as the assassin for the Silence.

But he let his Ponds - including Melody - believe that it was a case of Rule One, of The Doctor Lies... because they didn’t need to know how terrified he had been, how that self-loathing part of him - the Dream Lord part of him - had hoped she _wouldn’t_.

And so after the Ponds went to bed that night, he went to see her, an older her, in Stormcage. By the console chronometer, it was less than a week since he had left her here, after the party.

“Hello, sweetie,” River said, and smiled at him through the bars.

The Doctor stared at her dumbly for a moment; she looked so... _normal_ , so very River Song, not at all like the frightened and angry adolescent in River’s body he had seen so recently. Then he shook himself, sonicked the security camera and the cage, swung the door open, and wrapped his arms tightly around her. And then he buried his face in her hair and just held on, breathing her in, feeling her as real and as _herself_.

Several minutes later, the Doctor realised he was crying into River’s hair, when she pulled back and looked at him. “When are you, my love?” she asked softly, and he sniffled.

“I’ve just done Berlin, just left you with the Sisters of the Infinite Schism,” he said, and felt rather than heard her sharp intake of breath. His arms tightened around her, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. “Why did you do it, River? Give up your lives for me?” He could hear how hoarse his voice was, and hers, when she answered, was equally so.

River pulled back, looking away and rubbing her arms as though she was cold. When the Doctor moved toward her as if to take her in his arms again, she held up a hand to forestall him, still not looking at him. “I gave them to you,” she said slowly, “Because you were... _real_ to me for the first time. Not Amy’s Raggedy Doctor, not the bogeyman for the Silence, just...” her voice broke and she finally looked him in the face. _So sad,_ he thought, _and guilty, but it wasn’t her fault, she_... but she was still talking, even more quietly now. “Just a man, a _good_ man,” she said, and a tear rolled down her cheek. He heard himself make a concerned noise in the back of his throat, but she held his gaze and it was clear that she needed to say this, so he held his peace. “You were a man who was willing to die if that was what it took to keep your friends - and _their_ friend, for all she’d shot up your ship - safe, a man who forgave and lo... who forgave me even as I killed you. I...”

The Doctor couldn’t help it then; he kissed her fiercely on the lips, interrupting her. “It was _not your fault_ , River,” he said against her mouth, then pulled away to frame her face in his hands, fingers sliding into her hair. “The _Silence_ killed me; you were only the weapon. But _you_... you brought me back, River, at an enormous cost to yourself.”

“I had to try.” She said it simply, as she had lying in the bed at the Sisters’ hospital.

“But why _all_ of them, River? You didn’t have to give so much, you--”

“I didn’t know any better,” she said, interrupting him and looking embarrassed. “I was operating on sheer instinct. And you were in no shape to tell me otherwise.” She took his wrists in her hands and gently tugged his hands from her hair. She kissed his palms, one and then the other, and held them to her hearts. Then she said, “I don’t regret it. None of it, Doctor.”

“But...”

“No.”

“I could give some back,” he offered, almost shyly.

“Don’t you dare,” she snapped, eyes flashing. “You’d have to regenerate to do it and I won’t have it! You told me yourself, less than a month ago. ‘Not one line,’ you said.”

 _No, River,_ you _said it. ‘Not those times, Doctor, not one line. Don’t you dare.’_

He swallowed hard, tugged her to him, and kissed her head again. “Not one line,” he agreed, his voice muffled by her hair and his emotion.

They stood together like that for a few minutes, and then River pulled away, regretfully, the Doctor thought. “The guards will be coming to check on the broken security camera soon,” she said in a voice that was clearly meant to be cheerful and teasing, but failed badly. “You really must find a way to stop them noticing.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and so did the teasing facade, and he got a look at the sad and worried woman, the one she didn’t show him often, underneath it all. But she made no move to step away, no move to hide the pain; just stood in the circle of his arms, watching him.

“You could come with us,” the Doctor said as he had another day, knowing she couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Not while Amy and Rory were reeling from the revelations of the past day; she would never hurt them like that if she could help it. She shook her head.

“Not one line,” she said, and kissed him hard and desperately, then shoved him away. “Go,” she said, with tears behind her voice, “before we risk rewriting history.”

And so the Doctor went.

 

\--/--

 

Author’s note: I have [another story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/484791) that fits in here... mostly. The continuities don’t quite line up.

 


	9. Dam Good

_“Oh! Jim the Fish! How is he?”_

_“Still building his dam.”_

_~River Song and the Doctor, The Impossible Astronaut_

 

After the terrible things he’d seen - and done - over the past while, the Doctor just wanted his Ponds to be _safe_. And that meant _away from him_ , especially after the Minotaur and... yes, right, well... he’d had to leave the older Amy there on Apalapucia, the paradox would have torn the old girl apart, so he’d had to do it... hadn’t he?

So he bought them a house in a row (where Amy was not alone in too big and empty a house), bought Rory a car (Rory’d always wanted that car, the Doctor didn’t remember when he’d been told, but he _knew_ ), took any way at all to keep them safe and out of his life.

And now he was alone again.

The Doctor knew when he was fated to die; it was a fixed point. He couldn’t really run from it, he had tried that before and it hadn’t turned out well.

But he could bloody well have fun until it was time. And he wanted to share the fun with River.

“Hello, sweetie,” River said as the Doctor sonicked the camera and the cell door. He could see - although he wasn’t sure how, her bearing or _something_ \- that she was younger than she had been the last time he’d seen her, when she’d sent him away. Older than the River from Berlin though, well, she’d have to be, wouldn’t she? Old enough to love him, old enough to run with him - unlike in Berlin - at least for a while.

“Come with me?” he asked her from the open cell door, and she just smiled and grabbed her diary, took his hand and led him to his ship. Slipping inside, she tugged him to the stairs and sat, patting the step next to her in invitation. She opened the diary.

“When are we, my love?” River asked, and smiled at him as he sat, arranging his gangly legs out of the way. She flipped through the book. “Have you done the Pyramid? Easter Island?” He shook his head. “You’ve done Berlin, I presume? And I hope...” She trailed off, looking uncomfortable, and he put his hands over hers, closing the journal.

“I have,” he said firmly, “And that’s all we’re saying about that. So... how about oh, Demon’s Run?” He wondered whether the River who had scolded him, shown him who she was; was that River younger or older than the one he’d been tied up with in ancient Greece, the one he’d taken to Liz Eight’s party? But she was looking at him quizzically.

“I was only a baby,” she said slowly ( _well, that answers_ that _question,_ he thought), “And I wasn’t even _there_ , not really. But I remember bits of it quite clearly. My mother told me my father was coming to save us. You told me I shouldn’t call her ‘Big Milk Thing.’ You insisted that your bow tie was cool.” She gave a slightly bitter half laugh. “I should be able to remember more. But it wasn’t _me_ , and I was only a baby, and--” River broke off and the Doctor - rather hesitantly because he still wasn't sure when she was - put one arm around her. She leaned into it, snuggling her head on his shoulder, then turned it to smile up at him. “And you, sweetie? When are you?”

“I think I’m ahead of you for once,” he said, and she nodded. “So the Byzantium then, or the Pandorica? Those are both spoilers?” River made a little noise of assent and he continued, musing. “Right then. Asgard?” She shook her head. “Oh... Segonax?” He was half-joking, thinking that Segonax had been a fever-dream brought on by regeneration, but she nodded and he could feel his mouth open in surprise. “But...”

“It was real, my love,” River said, pulling away and looking ever so slightly ashamed of herself, “But I had to... well, there were spoilers then.”

“You _lipsticked_ me!” His voice was accusing, and she flinched, but her voice was steady.

“I hated to do it, sweetie. You had saved me and it was, well, _you_. But you were so _young_ in this incarnation, and I couldn’t let you remember it as real, not then, and--” She broke off as he kissed her, and sighed in relief into his mouth as she realised the kiss meant she was forgiven. Snuggling closer, she kissed him back, and they toppled together onto the glass floor of the console room.

Later, they lay with limbs entwined, and she stretched luxuriously. “Hello,” she said, smiling into his eyes, and he smiled back.

“Hello,” he returned, and then sat up in surprise as the floor shifted under them. The old girl was taking them somewhere, without warning. At least she had waited until after... he felt himself blush and got up, pulling on his discarded trousers and heading to the console. River made an inarticulate protesting noise, but she got up, slipping her khaki dress on over her head and joining him.

“Oh,” River said as she read the console screen, sounding pleased, “I’ve always wanted to visit Messaline. The archaeological opportunities there are... what is it, my love?” Her tone changed to one of concern as she felt him stiffen beside her.

“Um...” he said, not sure whether Jenny counted. “I - there may be spoilers here, but I don’t know for certain. I...” He was floundering, not knowing what to say, but this River was obviously old enough to know him well. She took his flailing hands in hers.

“Does it have to do with me?” _Yes_ , he thought, _not really. Only that I found and lost Jenny on the same day, as I did you just a bit later, meeting and losing my_ family _in a matter of hours, I..._ but River was still talking, and he yanked his attention back to her. “I mean, _directly_ with me, my love, or with my parents?” He shook his head.

“No. Nothing to do with you or Amy or Rory. Just me. And my...” The Doctor’s voice cracked and he took a deep and shuddering breath. “My daughter.” He watched River’s face for reaction to this bombshell, but she just squeezed his hand, silently encouraging him to continue. “She was a... not my daughter in the traditional sense. A genetic anomaly, and Donna took that and called her _Jenny_. An opposite-sex clone of me, but so... so _young_ , River. Like a child, that way.” He sighed, heavily. “She died though; she was killed there on Messaline, taking a bullet meant for me. She was my clone, my _daughter_ , but... well, her hearts, they weren’t enough, not for her to regenerate, but she... she would have been amazing.” With the last word, his voice broke again, and he felt River pull him close and pat his back until he stopped shuddering with loss and pain and guilt.

When the Doctor had subsided, River pulled away slightly, framing his long face between two slender hands. She kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’re the Man Who Never Would,” she said. “I should have guessed it was you. Not this you though, I think.” He shook his head, sure that his expression was utterly ridiculous as he stared at her. How had she known? “There’s a legend about him on Messaline,” she said softly, in that slightly sing-song tone he thought of as _Archaeologist Lecture,_ “He led the Humans and the Hath out of the darkness to the Source, and taught them to work together, with the help of his handmaidens: the Healer, the Warrior, and the Archivist. I’m guessing that your Jenny was the Warrior, because in the story, she was slain protecting him. And he’s called that because he was too wise and too kind to exact revenge upon her killer.” She smiled at him, and the smile looked sad. “I’m sorry for your loss, my love. If you’re not all right, we can...” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the TARDIS doors, and he jumped up.

“I’m all right,” he said, and to his own surprise, he _was_. He checked the chronometer. “It’s a couple hundred years since I was last here, and I’ve got a different face, so I don’t think anyone will know me.” _And it might be better if they don’t_ , he thought, _because who knows whether River’s story is the_ only _one about the Man Who Never Would_. He took a deep breath, pulled River to her feet, and they walked together to the doors.

Outside, all was chaos.

The Doctor and River stepped out onto a platform above what - at first - looked like a pitched battle. River had her blaster out within seconds, but the Doctor put one hand on hers as he noticed it was only voices at high volume, not actual fighting. “Stop!” he shouted, and when nobody did, he yelled, “I am the Man Who Never Would, and I command you to _stop_!”

 _So much for anonymity_ , he thought, even as he heard River mutter the same words.

But they _did_ stop. Most of them, anyway.

A man, heavyset enough to be a Slitheen in a human suit, and red-faced - from the shouting or the warm weather or sheer size was not clear - stepped forward. “How do we know that you’re him,” he said, in a remarkably reasonable tone. “You don’t look anything like him.” The Doctor looked at River, who shrugged and holstered her pistol.

“All yours, honey,” she said, and smirked at him. He pulled a face at her and turned to the crowd, which was now fairly quiet. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that River still had her hand on the pistol butt, ready to draw and fire should he be threatened. Better be careful then.

“Well,” the Doctor said to the big man, “I er... don’t die when I die. I change.” Nobody looked convinced. “Okay, like the landscape here changed when I helped release the Source, years ago. It went from hostile to lush and green, yeah? So when my body is dying, I... change.”

“Because you’re the Man Who Never Would,” said the large man in a neutral tone, and his expression was equally so. Like he _wanted_ to believe but didn’t quite dare... maybe because of the muttering crowd behind him.

The crowd began to jeer at him, not a dangerous crowd as such, not a mob. Just a group of humans deriding one of their own for some unknown reason. “Of course _you’d_ believe him, Sourceless Hath-lover,” shouted one, and “Fish-heads have no space for brains,” yelled another. Eventually, they were all babbling again, and River appeared to take pity on the man, who was getting more flushed by the moment, though he didn’t acknowledge the crowd.

“Come on, sweetie,” River murmured into the Doctor’s ear, and grabbed the stout man by the hand, drawing him up onto the platform with them. She snapped her fingers and the TARDIS doors opened. “Thank you, old girl,” said River to the blue box, dragging the men in behind her and closing the doors. She pushed them gently into adjoining jump seats.

“Now then,” River said to the portly man, “What’s your name, and why has the rest of your settlement turned against you?”

He sighed. “They call me Jim the Fish, because I’m trying to work with the Hath, like _he_ said.” He pointed accusingly at the Doctor. “The rest of ‘em, they think if the Hath can’t have the dam over the river - they need it for their spawning waters - they’ll just dry up and go away! But that ain’t right; we’re meant to work together, like he said.” He gave the Doctor a look of combined awe and exasperation.

The Doctor grinned at him, and cracked his knuckles. “Well now,” he said, “Perhaps a little speech is in order...” He trailed off as River rolled her eyes at him. Looking at her beseechingly, he whinged, “Please, River? Just a _little_ speech?” She laughed, and spoke to the man known as Jim the Fish.

“Do you really want a society based on _that_ pouting face?” she asked.

“Well,” he said apologetically, “We kind of already do. Or we’re meant to. Although not really that face, it was the other face, the...” He threw up his hands. “Oh for the Source’s sake, this is beyond ridiculous!” But the Doctor saw that River was nodding at him.

“That’s it, Jim the Fish,” she said. “And you keep that name, because it makes you the most important man on this planet right now; Jim the Fish, the Man Who Would.” She laughed as both men gaped at her. “Don’t you see, sweetie? Jim, you swore by the Source, and I heard another call you _Sourceless_ ; do all your people do the same?”

He nodded. “The Hath do too,” he offered. “They even use the human word for it. It’s kind of hissy and slithery the way they say it, but, yeah, they do too.” River rubbed her hands together with glee.

“There you go, sweetie,” she said, turning to the Doctor. “They thought of you as a god - the Man Who Never Would - but they swear by their _real_ god - the Source. What if you weren’t a god, but a... an avatar of the true god? And Jim the Fish here is Its newest prophet. You have come back to tell the people to listen to him, to work with the Hath as you decreed years ago. It explains everything - why your aspect has changed, why your handmaidens have changed to only one, all of it. What do you think?”

The Doctor just grinned. He liked it. Jim the Fish stared at her in a kind of horrified admiration. “But... but I’m no holy man, I’m just a bloke who wants to do the right thing, I--” He broke off as River gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek, and he blushed hard.

“That’s what makes you the very best kind of holy man, Jim,” she said softly. “Humility. I rarely manage to pull it off myself, and as for him!” She jerked her head at the Doctor with a teasing sort of derision.

“Oi!” He protested for the form of it, but he knew she was right. Humility was a hard one, for any Time Lord. But she had this situation well in hand - trust an archaeologist to invent a whole religion - so after the token protest he held his peace.

But Jim the Fish, later, surprised them both. The Doctor at least had forgotten that _humble_ was not the same thing as _stupid_ , and he was startled into a crow of delight when the very first act that Jim the Fish performed as the Man Who Would was to proclaim the river as a holy site, and the dam they would build there as a temple to the Source.

And to Its avatar, the Man Who Never Would.

 


	10. A Wedding Dance

_“I tried to fight it but I can’t. It’s too strong.”_

_~River, The Wedding of River Song_

 

Time was - is? - all happening at once, and it was his fault. Because River Song - when she was this young, fresh out of University - River was unable to think of a way out.

It had been a good run, his time with the older, more _knowing_ River, when their timelines were nearly in sync. Jim the Fish and Easter Island, Ancient Greece and a party in the twenty-third century. A visit with Vastra after a dig went wrong, and a weird encounter with an alternate universe’s fiction. The birthday at the Frost Fair with Stevie Wonder - he had worried that River would be so, so sad with that, but she had been serenely content - and the birthday that made him blush to think of it, with two of him, and one of her and...

And so much more, loving and living with his River Song, birthdays and adventures and _running_ with River. If he could just get them out of this situation, make her kill him on that beach without his actually dying, they could be together again Or still. It _had_ to happen, it had happened, it would happen, it was happening.

All at once.

Because this River would not let him die, would not let herself kill him, even though she knew - she must _know_ \- that it was a fixed point. She loved him - the gods only knew why, especially this early in her time stream - and she simply refused to do it. But he had a plan. He’d tried it, down inside the pyramid, but they’d pulled him off her, and the look on her face... it nearly destroyed him.

He had hurt her, he was hurting her, he would have to hurt her.

Again. Again for _him_ ; for her this time in and on the pyramid would be the first time he deliberately hurt her, and he dreaded it, hated hurting her. But... ‘ _not one line_ ,’ damn it; he had done it, so he would do it. Oh, she hadn’t _told_ him he’d hurt her; she never would, she hated showing any sort of weakness. He didn’t know why she was so afraid to show weakness - although he suspected it had been forbidden when she was being... _trained_... as his killer.

“There isn’t another way...” No, it wasn’t enough; she wasn’t convinced, not enough to let him near her, even cuffed. Damn it, he _was_ going to have to hurt her, because there wasn’t another way, no way to convince her; she wasn’t rational when it came to this.

Well, neither was he.

So he said terrible things to her, hurt her; he had to make her _see_.But then she was screaming at him, showing him how scared she was. She so rarely did that; it was like a gift, he couldn’t...

“Shut up! I _can't_ let you die, without knowing you are loved. By so many, and so much. And by no one more than me.”

He had to try again to make her understand the billions upon billions of people who would suffer and die if she did this thing. And her response absolutely floored him.

She didn’t care.

River didn’t care how many people were hurt, killed, even erased from time, if their lives meant she had to kill her Doctor. This young, anyway; she might care later in her timeline. If there was or is or will-be a later. There was nothing for it but to touch her, and he was so very afraid he’d hurt her beyond repair, and...

And then the Doctor had it; the idea crystallised in his mind fully formed. He knew what he had to do, and what’s more, he _wanted_ to do it. He was going to marry River Song. He would ultimately still hurt her, getting her locked up for his murder, but at least she would be safe there. And it would - he hoped - hurt her less than the alternative, being responsible, _knowing_ she was responsible, for the deaths of all those billions of people.

He leaned in, told her quietly to look into his eye, and the expression on her face changed from despair and pain to one of dawning understanding and even a quiet joy. The Doctor nearly wept with relief. “And wife, I have a request. This world is dying and it's my fault. And I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way.”

“Then you may kiss the bride.”

“I’ll make it a good one.”

“You’d better,” she said, and he kissed her.

They kissed, are kissing, will kiss, and the world went white around him as River shot the Tesselecta on the shore of Lake Silencio.

 

\--/--

 

“Hello,” the Doctor and the Tesselecta said. “It’s okay. I know it’s you.” _Oh, her eyes_ , he thought as the helmet opened, _she always could keep the pain off her face but not out of her eyes_. “Well then.” When the first shot hit the Tesselecta, and the Doctor’s form began to regenerate, all he could do was apologise, because he knew - he _knew_ \- that this would hurt them, his Ponds.

When the second shot hit, the Doctor hurriedly severed the psychic link, because that had _hurt_. Had hurt terribly, as though he really was being shot in both hearts. _Have to pilot the thing the old-fashioned way_ , he thought a bit fuzzily as the link dissolved, _can’t have_ these _Ponds thinking I’m still alive and._.. the world whited out again for a moment as he sank into the pilot’s chair. When he came back to himself, he could still feel the twin pangs in his chest as Amy wept over the body she thought was his.

At least, he thought it was the residual pain from being psychically linked to a robot of himself being shot that made his hearts ache so.

 _Oh_ , he thought vaguely as he sat in the chair and laid on the beach, _this explains so much. No wonder they were so cross with me_. And then he found himself drifting as he had so long ago, two or three centuries, after the Pandorica opened. So long ago...

_You are forgiven. Always and completely forgiven._

_For anything and everything, my River. Always._

_No matter what has happened, happens, will happen._

_Always and completely, my beloved River Song._  

The Doctor woke, slumped in the chair used to pilot the Tesselecta, and realised the machine was burning. _Good then_ , he thought, _Canton did as he was told_.

Time to get out of here, before he burned with it.

 

\--/--

 

 

 _Ah, my River_ , he thought fondly as she came through the doors of the TARDIS. Even if he had wanted to stay away, he never would - not on her first night in Stormcage. And Sexy knew that, and loved them both, and brought him here to the right time and place.

The fond smile he wore as he watched her was rudely interrupted by another River though, this one from five years on in her personal time line, running from a rousing evening of Sontaran-baiting. She flirted with him, teased him, toyed with him by pretending to be badly hurt, and although he enjoyed the banter (but not the look in her eyes; apparently it had been some time for her since she’d seen him last), he had to send her back; it wouldn’t do for the two Rivers to meet.

And that was after _another_ River - they were up to three now, and he shuddered at the potential paradox - had shown up, wearing the metallic green dress he’d bought for the first one, and some small part of him crowed with delight at how good she looked in it, with the colour and the tight fabric spanning her small waist and the...

The other Doctor, an older one of him, looking debonair - but perhaps a bit pale and drawn? - in a top hat and tails. There was more banter, and a. - fond, yes, call it ‘fond’ - memory of _that_ birthday, some flirting and smirking and... and then the bottom dropped out of the world, because the third River and the other Doctor...

They were on their way to Darillium.

“He’s been promising for ages,” the third River said as she left the TARDIS, and the Doctor had to swallow hard to keep from begging her not to go.

Now he knew why his older self looked tired and pale.

But this was not the time to think of that River, of Darillium, of the Library. Now was the time to think of _this_ River, the one who didn’t yet understand about the spoilers, who was innocently looking forward to an evening on Calderon Beta.

Who had only just learned to trust him.

“Oh, Doctor,” she said, brushing past him. “You and your secrets. You’ll be the death of me.”

The Doctor swallowed hard again, and followed.

 

\--/--

 

Calderon Beta was - as the Doctor had told River - primarily a planet of chip shops.

The Doctor - still in a melancholy mood - wondered why he’d never brought Rose here. Rose and chips were like... like fish fingers and custard; they just went together.

Like he and River had for a while. Two centuries and more, and still not long enough. Like - he hoped - they could again, running and loving and just _being together_. This River, the one with him here tonight, she was lovely and young and innocent in many ways, and he cared as much for her as he did the older River, the one he knew well. But he still missed her, that older River, the one who would flirt and laugh and run with him. He would have to teach this younger one to _be_ that River, because he had and would and _not one line_...

Starting tonight, on the tree on the cliff top on the mountain jutting up from the sea. So he held out a hand. “Will you run with me, Doctor River Song?” She accepted the hand, and they ran to the skimmer station, rented one and took it to the mountain, just above the surface of the sea. She allowed him to help her out of the skimmer in his best courtly fashion, and he sonicked the ticket machine - they had used all they had of anything remotely like money to rent the skimmer - and they looked up at the enormous tree for a while.

“It’s lovely, Doctor,” River said softly, and smiled up at him. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Any time, Doctor Song,” he replied, smiling down in return; she was so innocent still, and sweet. The River he knew best was many things - arrogant and beautiful and dangerous and brilliant - but sweet wasn’t really her style. _Stop that, Time Lord,_ he thought to himself. _Stop trying to see the River you know in this one. Just... be with her, and it will come_. Then he tugged at her hand until she followed him into the lift at the base of the giant tree.

She _was_ sweet, but maybe he was wrong about _innocent_ , because the moment the lift doors closed, she launched herself at him, pinning him to the wall and kissing him for all she was worth.

And he cooperated, enthusiastically.

Until there was the sound of what - in a human or a Time Lord - would be a throat clearing, And the Doctor and River froze, lips still touching. He opened his eyes, pushed River’s voluminous hair aside, and peered around her ear at the violet-stalked person in the other corner of the lift.

“Er, hello,” he said, then removed his mouth from River’s and said it again. River began to giggle.

“Hello,” the being said equably, and some of its ( _his? their?_ thought the Doctor) stalks started to change colour. Several of them were edging from violet to pink, and others to blue. “Is this a mating chamber? We-I thought it was a lift.”

River laughed harder, then squeaked as the Doctor elbowed her in the ribs. “River,” he hissed, feeling utterly scandalised, “It’s a serious question for them-him. Sulamids. You aren’t helping.” She subsided and he turned back to the alien. “Our species do not have mating chambers as such,” he explained earnestly, “But we are recently er...” he trailed off, delicately, and the Sulamid waved a few tentacles in query.

“Formally mated,” River put in with aplomb, and the waving tentacles changed colour again as the Sulamid waved them harder.

“Ah,” they-he said. “Felicitations. Carry on then.” And all the tentacular stalks turned their eyes politely away, into the opposite corner of the lift.

River began to giggle again, gave the Doctor a smacking kiss on the lips, and waited demurely for the lift doors to open.

When they reached the top, the Sulamid waved all of their-his tentacles at the two of them, and exited the lift, clearly intending to give them privacy. They followed them-him out, and watched as the alien wandered off down a long, wide branch of the tree and disappeared into foliage.

“That was rather nice,” River said, still giggling quietly, as they started off in a different direction, their chosen branch heading slightly upward. They held hands and walked - no need to run here and now - through a screen of leaves to a... if they were on the ground the Doctor would call it a clearing or a small meadow. There was a padded bench and he drew River to it, sitting and pulling her down beside him, dropping her diary into her lap. A seat back scrolled smoothly out of the back of the bench, and as they sat against it, he pulled out his screwdriver and sonicked it so it reclined. They lay there on the bench, propped in a stargazing position, holding hands, and watched as the stars came out.

“It’s lovely,” River breathed as the clock ticked around to 12:12 AM. The Doctor plucked her copy of their diary off her lap and handed it to her. She gave him an affectionate but exasperated look, but she did open it, and found that the light was in fact bright enough to read by.

“Shall we add a new chapter to it, my River?” he asked her softly, and she nodded up at him, the bright stars of Calderon Beta reflected in her eyes.

And then the Doctor made love to his River Song, and taught her to love him in return.

 

\--/--

 

Author’s Note: I have some other stories that fit in here, but they were written earlier and are not compliant with canon as revealed in Series 7:

 

[River Rescue](../../364039) \- an adventure on Easter Island

[With and Without Words](../../370929) \- something goes wrong at a dig, and Vastra helps

[On Fiction](../../395106) \- what if there’s an alternate universe where River and the Doctor are fictional?


	11. The Nights

_“You’ve already had me banged up in jail for five years. What else’re you gonna do? Spank me?”_

_~River Song, Last Night_

 

It had been less than two days for the Doctor since he dropped River at Stormcage after Calderon Beta, but he went to check on the five-years-on River - make sure those Sontarans she’d insulted hadn’t tracked her down (of course they hadn’t, or even if they had they couldn’t get her in Stormcage) - only to discover her asleep on the narrow bed in her cell. As he approached, sonicking the security cameras and the cell door, he noticed a few things. She was wearing the clothes she’d had on when he’d last seen this her, even to the wide utility belt. Her blaster pistol was peeking out from under her pillow; if the guards saw that... he shook his head and crept closer.

And then he felt his hearts clench, because River Song had been crying. There were dried tear tracks on her face.

But that meant... that meant it hadn’t only been exasperation and annoyance in River’s voice when she’d twitted him for leaving her locked up for five years. The flirting that had been so hard-edged, the jealousy (of herself, but _she_ didn’t know that) so very real, and her eyes like little green agates... these all meant that River was _hurt_. It must have been a very long time since she’d seen him, before she’d gone Sontaran-baiting to get his attention.

The Doctor hadn’t realised, but now that he did, he was utterly aghast. Hurting her deliberately to save a universe and keep her safe, or even lashing out in anger, those were... they were comprehensible. He had come to terms with causing that sort of hurt; sometimes it was necessary, and sometimes it just happened. But to hurt the... the _indomitable_ River Song so badly that she cried herself to sleep, and that _accidentally_? He shook his head again, as though to clear it, and knelt at her bedside, stroking her hair back from her face. “River?”

River’s eyes snapped open, much as they had in the TARDIS, and she sat up. “Hello, sweetie,” she said as though it was automatic, but her tone was... annoyed. A bit angry, but as though it took too much energy to maintain anger.

“Hello.” The Doctor tried the hot-when-he’s-clever look out from under his fringe, but River remained unmoved, except for something indescribable flickering behind her eyes. The Doctor stood, taking her hands and drawing her to her feet. He decided it was better to throw himself on her mercy, plead spoilers and not-one-line, and hope that she would forgive him. “River. I’m sorry - _so_ sorry - that I didn’t come to see you before this, I--”

“Oh,” River interrupted breezily, glaring at him. Now the anger was apparent. “Why should you, after all?”

 _Why should... why_ should _he? How can she possibly think I’d..._ He spoke before he stopped to think. “Because you’re River Song. Melody Pond. My wife.”

“Your _wife_.” It was said with such scorn that the Doctor found himself staggering back a step, away from the contempt in her voice. It would have hurt less if she’d slapped him as she had - _would_ \- in 1969.

 _Do not run from her_ , _Time Lord,_ he thought rather desperately. He _wanted_ to run away from the look on her face. But he daren’t. _If you run now she will never forgive you and everything will be lost._

“It’s not like it’s a real marriage,” River was saying in a biting, challenging tone, and _that_ hurt his hearts almost as much as shots to the Tesselecta had. “You married me to fix a timeline that I buggered up, and took me out a few times, and--”

 _She thinks..._ the words whirled round and round in the Doctor’s mind. _She thinks it wasn’t_ real _to me, that I didn’t, that I don’t...I..._

“It’s real to me!” he shouted, and then he buried his own face in his hands and choked out, “It’s real to me.” He sat down hard on her narrow little bed, head still in hands. “I’m so sorry, River, so very sorry. I never meant...”

“Look at me,” River said, her voice hard, and the Doctor shook his head, but was otherwise still. “Look at me!” she insisted, and he took a deep and shuddering breath and looked up at her. She stood, face as hard as her voice, with the flash of the eternal storm behind her, and her hair wild around her head like the halo of some battle goddess.

She had never looked more beautiful.

But her eyes, she never could keep the pain out of her eyes.

So he looked away.

“Stop it!” River cried. “I thought you... after Calderon Beta, and that planet with the purple moons, and the Sands of Shifting Tides, I thought _we_... but now you won’t even look at me!”

“I can’t...” _No, River, please, I’m so sorry, I never meant..._

“Can't what? Doctor, why won’t you look at me?” River’s voice was no longer hard and angry; now it was resigned, and _oh,_ so sad. He couldn’t resist it, and he looked up at her again, pulling her down to sit beside him.

“I...” He choked on it; he couldn’t explain how much it hurt him to hurt her.

“Why did you marry me?” It was a demand. _Why did I marry, you? River, I.._.

“Because I wanted to.” It was that simple; surely she could see how simple it was.

“It wasn’t...” She paused and looked away, then said in an uncharacteristically small voice, “It wasn’t only to fix the timeline?”

 _Oh, my River Song_ , the Doctor thought. _I’m so sorry._ “It was not,” he confirmed gently. “If I had only wanted to fix the timeline, I could have simply taken your hand.” _Instead I practically abandoned you, and it doesn’t matter that I didn’t know._

“Will you...” The emerald eyes were less wounded now, but still wary as River visibly steeled herself for... something. “Will you tell me why you didn’t come more often?”

The Doctor closed his eyes. “Spoilers.”

“Oh.” But in spite of the short response, she sounded happier with this explanation - or lack of it - than with not knowing, and the Doctor opened his eyes again, only to find her smiling at him. It was a bit shaky and unsure, not at all her usual flirty grin, but it _was_ a smile. “The same reason you came so seldom while I was at University?” she asked, her tone now matter-of-fact, information-seeking rather than sad.

“Clever girl,” the Doctor said, approvingly, and watched her face light up. _So young still,_ he thought, _and so easily hurt.._. There was only one thing he could do to make it up to her, because of not-one-line.

“You could come with me now.”

 

\--/--

 

She went with him willingly enough, and the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief.  It would be all right now; River was with him, ready to run with him, and no longer angry and alone in Stormcage. _If I’ve only been to see her twice after Calderon Beta._.. He shivered at the thought. Oh, she’d had that vortex manipulator; she’d been able to leave or she wouldn’t have been out Sontaran-baiting, but still... _Five years in Stormcage, who knows how long between visits, wondering if I would ever come back again, or if this is_ it _, all she gets for trusting me..._

He set the controls, giving Sexy her head. “Take us where you like, old girl,” he said, patting a screen fondly, and _there_ was River’s grin, flashing at him across the console.

“Now that’s the way to do it, sweetie,” River said in a deceptively sweet tone. “Let the women do the driving.” She kept smiling at him as he rounded the console and tapped her lightly on the nose, and a kind of tension seemed to drop away from them both.

“I’m sorry,” they said in unison, and the Doctor continued, “There’s no need for you to be sorry, River.” He looked down at her just as the TARDIS rotor whooshed and the ship shuddered hard, flinging them both into the jump seat in a tangle of limbs. The old girl steadied immediately, and the Doctor felt a surge of contentment and a mild admonishment from his ship, so he smiled at the woman in his arms.

“I’d say she wants us to kiss and make up, sweetie,” River whispered, inches from his lips. She smiled back at him. “Shall we oblige her?” She smoothed his bow tie and curved her hand around the back of his neck, drawing his face down to hers.

And then she kissed him.

 _Forgiven,_ the Doctor thought, _it works both ways - always and completely forgiven_. Then his knees went wibbly and he was grateful for the jump seat’s support as he kissed River back.

Later, after, they sat companionably together in the kitchen of the TARDIS. They wore matching dressing gowns of TARDIS blue, and River looked over her mug of tea at him. “It’s not really that bad, you know,” she said quietly, and the Doctor put down the fish finger he held. “I’ve got everything I need - except you - every day. And you when you can.” She smiled at him through the steam curling up from the mug. “I just have to remember that ‘when you can’ isn’t always under your control.”

“Tell me.” It was an invitation, and River smiled at him again as she told him about the one young guard she thought fancied her, and the way they were always so perplexed when she came back after breaking out, and how they could never find the vortex manipulator unit because she kept it - and her copy of their diary - in a little bigger-on-the-inside pocket she had made. “You made it yourself?” he asked, nearly bursting with pride, and she smirked.

“‘I understand the physics’,” she quoted herself. “Remember? No,” she put up one hand to forestall the apology he felt bubbling up again. _She knows me so well, even this young,_ he thought, and subsided. “I understand the physics, and if anyone should apologise, it’s me; I know enough of the physics and the... the _rules_ of time travel to know you can’t always be where you want to be. Sometimes you go...” She made a random gesture, looking as though she was searching for a word.

“Where I needto be,” the Doctor said gently, remembering. “Or where I am needed.” River nodded. “Well then,” he said, “What else?”

“One of the guards...” River said, and stopped, clearly wondering whether to continue. The Doctor put on his best encouraging face, and River said, almost hesitantly, “He’s the... well, the guards at Stormcage are part of the Church you know?” He nodded. “And this one guard, the youngest I think, just a child really... Octavian, they call him.” She paused again, at the frozen look he could feel on his own face. “What is it?”

 _Oh nothing,_ the Doctor’s thoughts whirled wildly through his head. _Just that he died - will die - with you despising him, never seeing through the unbending exterior to the_ man _, I..._ but River had started talking again. “I think he’s a good man, or will be,” she said, reluctantly, “But he’s a hard one, and cold.” She shivered, and the Doctor did too. “You seem upset, sweetie. What is it?”

What could he say? “Spoilers.” He could hear how hoarse his voice was, but he hoped she wouldn’t notice. Best to change the subject. “Right then.” His voice was brisk now, and he clapped his hands once. River gave him a sharp look, but let it go. “Shall we see where the old girl has gotten us to, River Song?”

“Perhaps we should change first, my love,” she said, laughing. “While you look very fetching in blue, I think the dressing gown would hamper running. Meet you at the front door?”

The Doctor nodded, and went to change his clothes. _Little does she know what happened - or will happen - when we go to ancient Greece,_ he thought, not paying attention to what he was putting on. _I’d better wait at the doors..._ inside _the doors. Not sure my personal Siren can handle that yet._

When he got to the doors, in full-on tuxedo, top hat, spats, and sonic cane, River was waiting for him. He stopped in the middle of the console stairway, gaping at her. “River, you... the blue, and the lace and the... you. River, you’re _beautiful_.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” she said, and pirouetted. The full skirt of the lacy blue dress flared to a scandalous height. “Well, my love? Shall we?”

“We shall,” he said, and offered her his arm. She accepted it, and together they stepped through the TARDIS doors, and into a garish and tacky twentieth century Vegas wedding chapel, complete with Elvis at the pulpit. In tight powder blue and sparkles and sunglasses.

The Doctor _loved_ it.

River was clinging to his arm, laughing like a loon and trying to say something, but laughing far too hard to speak. So he did it for her, grinning. “Are you married, River?”

“Are you asking?” She gasped it out between giggles.

“Yes,” he said, suddenly feeling very serious, like this was important.

Apparently River felt the same way, because she sobered instantly. “Yes.”

“Shall we?” He gestured at the pulpit.

“Yes,” she said simply, and slid her hand from the crook of the Doctor’s elbow down to lace their fingers together. She tugged gently and led him to the front of the chapel.

The man in the Elvis suit was very drunk, the Doctor decided, drunk enough to take a blue police box materialising in his chapel with a carefully dignified equanimity. But he was sober enough to marry them (in a ceremony and a setting that even the Doctor recognised as terribly tacky), and that’s what mattered. Now they were married in _this_ timeline, he and his River Song. Melody Pond.

His _wife_.

And he had to take her back to Stormcage.

He would have a talk with the old girl; see if she’d be amenable to bringing him back here for River often - every night or two by River’s timeline. It was only fair.

 

\--/--

 

And she did; she brought him to River nearly every night, and took them out to run or dance or get married again. They got married by Liz X, who had been confused until River had explained spoilers. They were married by a warthog-like being from Abralaxis Eight, by a coven of witch-queens from the third moon of Junatch, and by an artificial life form from the Ring of Platinum Rains. They got married forty-two times all in all, and that was between - and sometimes part of - the running.

Running with River, his absolute favourite thing in the universe.

That first night, the one with the drunken Elvis, he had brought her back to Stormcage, and fretted aloud at the injustice of her being forced to stay there. And she had smiled at him, seemingly secure now in the knowledge that he _would_ come back, he would always come back.

“I’ll spend my days here, my love,” she said with a smile on her lips. “But the nights? The nights are ours.”


	12. Come Along, Pond

_“He doesn’t like endings...”_

_~River Song, The Angels Take Manhattan_

 

They were gone. The Ponds - his Ponds - were gone. Lost to him, nearly a century before their own time, just... gone. The Doctor wept as River kept her eyes on the Angel who had taken Amy.

No, after Amy had _let_ herself be taken, to be with Rory, to grow old with Rory.

It was Amy’s choice. 

Amy ( _the first face this face saw,_ he thought despairingly, _seared onto my hearts_ ) had made her choice, the right choice, the Doctor knew... and left her Raggedy Doctor alone. Except for River Song.

 _No_. 

Amy had called her _Melody_ , not River. Melody Pond.

He still had a Pond. 

The Doctor had to pull himself together, because it wasn’t only him. It was River. River Song, Melody Pond, his wife. Who had lost her parents, and who was almost certainly hiding that... that _pain_ , that vulnerability... from him.

“An ageless god with the face of a twelve-year-old,” she had said. “One does one’s best to hide the damage.” _Surely she knows she needn’t hide the damage from me. I caused most of it._ Her words had hurt worse than the slap across the face had.

The Doctor sat, facing away from his wife, because he hated to see her hurting, even when - _especially_ when - she refused to show it. He heard the beeps and clacks and squawks as River fiddled with console controls, and he could picture her in his mind. She would be standing at the console, typing at the keys and flipping switches, looking _up_ at the screen because she’d taken off her shoes.

“River.” He wanted nothing more than for her to say something - anything - to let him in, to give him some insight into her hearts. “They were your parents. Sorry. I didn't even think.”

“Doesn't matter,” she said, and if it had been anyone else he would have believed her from the tone alone. But it did matter, of course it did, and he would never, _ever_ believe she didn’t feel it. Not when she sounded like that. He could tell without even looking that she was wearing the tight-lipped expression that meant she was holding herself together by sheer willpower.

“Course it matters.” It was all he could say.

“What matters is this, Doctor,” River said almost fiercely. “Don't travel alone.” _Of course I won’t travel alone, travelling alone makes me dangerous, stupid and dangerous_. But he couldn’t say that of course.

She wasn’t the only one who could hide the damage. And she’d seen more than enough of his damage today, watched the Angel to keep him safe while he indulged himself in wild tears.

“Travel with me then.” _Please travel with me, River. Please. I need you._

_You need me._

“Whenever and wherever you want,” she said gently. “But not all the time. One psychopath per TARDIS, don't you think?” He heard her finish setting the controls, and she took a deep and shuddering breath.

But she still did not trust him enough to show him the damage.

\--/--

Later, after River’s suggestion of an Afterword had sent the Doctor running off to get a measure of peace, he returned to the TARDIS. He had done what Amy’s printed words had said, had told Little Amelia the story, and now... now it was time to try to share that peace with River.

But River wasn’t there.

Not in the console room, the kitchen, the pool, not in any of the places aboard the TARDIS they’d spent time together in the past two hundred years and more.

 _“But not all the time...” I didn’t think she meant right away..._  

And then he heard it, a sound he had never - _ever_ \- expected to hear.

River was weeping.

The console speakers transmitted her grief... and it was the most heartbreaking sound he had ever heard. “Sexy?” he whispered, “Can you show me where she is?” He felt a warmth on his left cheek, and turned in that direction, following the changing temperatures on his face. He wandered for some time - his time sense was wibbly just now - winding his way through endless corridors, River’s choked sobs echoing in his ears. _Oh, my River Song,_ he thought despairingly. _I would have helped. Please let me help._

He rounded a corner and stopped dead in his tracks, hearts sinking in his chest.

River... _sat_ was too passive a word for what River was doing. She was curled up on the floor, wedged between the bed and the corner of the room and rocking slightly, arms wrapped around her knees and head down on them. Her hair spilled around her, lighting up with each flash, because the room...

The room was a duplicate of her cell in Stormcage.

“River.” _Oh, River, please,_ please _, let me... we could mourn together, we..._

The Doctor could hear the pain in his own voice, the pleading in that one word, and evidently River could too; she went very still. The rocking and the sobbing stopped abruptly, but she did not look up. She just huddled curled in her defensive little ball, every line of her body taut with visible tension as the lightning flashed.

“River?” He crept closer, dropped gracelessly to the floor beside her. “River... please.” _Look up, please River, look at me, anything, please._.. “Come on,” he continued, and reached out a hand to touch her hair.

Without looking, River grabbed his wrist in a vise-like grip. “Don’t.” It was all she said, but the fiercely controlled tone told him she didn’t want to be touched.

 _Very well, no touching_. He tried to pull away, give her space, but she clung to his arm over the tweed. Still refusing to look at him, refusing to _be_ touched, but she would touch him. His hearts ached for her, for both of them, and he sighed and settled in for as long as it took for her to gather her strength.

A long time later - even the Doctor wasn’t sure how long; his time sense was still not working - River stirred. She didn’t look up, didn’t move really, but the tense muscles in her back relaxed just slightly, and she took a deep breath. “How did you find me?”

“She takes me where I need to be,” he said gently. “Or where I am needed.”

River tensed again, clearly not liking the idea that he knew she needed him, and the Doctor sighed. “Come on, River. Let’s go somewhere... friendlier than this.” He shivered as a particularly loud peal of thunder roared, and stood up stiffly, using her grip on his wrist to tug her gently to her feet.

She still wouldn’t look at him, but she did not let go; she followed him to a warmer, cosier room several corridors over. He drew her down to a blue-upholstered sofa, and carefully withdrew his hand from hers to tuck a soft blanket around her waist. Sitting next to her, he took both her hands in his, and fretted with both his hearts; her hands were cold, even to him. _How can I fix this?_ he asked himself grimly. There was nothing for it but to apologise; there must be something in his future, her past, to make her so reluctant to show him that vulnerable side. A warm and loving sensation of approval washed over him from the TARDIS, and he felt himself relax just a tiny bit. Sexy would know what to do; she had most likely already lived it in her eleventh-dimensional way.

“I...” The Doctor cleared his throat and began again. “I’m sorry, River.”

“What for,” she said dully, not precisely as a question, and her voice was as rusty as his.

“For... for everything. For whatever I’ve done to make you...” He choked slightly. “Whatever I have done to make you mistrust me so.” _You look so alone, lonely and afraid and I’m right here_ , he thought rather desperately, _I’m right here, my River, please,_ please _let me._..  and he began to babble. He _did_ babble when he was upset, he knew that. “God knows you’ve no cause to trust me, I’ve caused all that damage you say you’ve got but I’ve never seen it, and your parents, and, and River I am so _sorry_ , I... please, won’t you trust me, I--”

He broke off as River - _finally_ \- looked up at him. “I trust you,” she said simply, the green eyes huge and swimming with tears.

“Do you?” He could hear how quiet his voice had become, and hoped desperately that she would take it as it was meant, not misread it as evidence of an approaching storm.

“Of course.” River sounded confused now. “I trust you with my life.”

_Her life. Yes. But that’s all._

And it _hurt_.

“But not with your hearts.” She looked startled, and the Doctor went on. “I understand how it was when I was young, more than two centuries now. You couldn’t show me the vulnerable side - not on purpose, though I saw glimpses - for fear of spoilers. But now...” He trailed off, trying hard to think how he could do this without hurting her.

Again.

She beat him to it, taking a deep but ragged breath and freeing her hands from his. Reaching up to smooth his bow tie, she pulled him toward her by the back of his neck. _Just like Stormcage, when I ran away,_ the Doctor thought wildly, and then she kissed him. “I trust you, my love.” It was a whisper echoing in his mind, and he realised her hands had wandered up to settle into his hair, brushing against his temples. He gasped against her lips and then went still, sorting through the images she put in his mind.

And they _were_ images for the most part; swirling colours and glimpses of faces and places and times. Some of them were accompanied by sensation, and they were all - as far as the Doctor could tell - images of the recent past for River, within the past several weeks.

They were fuzzy, as though seen through a perception filter you knew was there. But they were also heartbreaking.

_Little grey aliens, and relief at the sight of the bluest blue ever, and momentary shock at the sight of wild dark hair and eyes so dark they were nearly black, and a picnic hamper and those sad black eyes over a glass of lemonade, and a sense of incipient loss and undefined longing, and her love (but not her love) weeping in her arms._

_A long black dress and a pair of red heels, the cold and unbending (but somehow good) face of Bishop Octavian, dislike and resentment but grudging respect, a flash of red hair and fair skin and scared hazel eyes, and terror and worry for my mo... for Amy. The Angels have her, they’re inside her mind, and he doesn’t know me, he shouts at me, he_ hates _me, I want_ my _Doctor..._  

The images came faster now, from further back in her time stream, and they were getting mixed up with phrases and physical sensations as River’s emotions overwhelmed her control.

_‘Now I love a bad girl, me. But trust you? Seriously?’_

_‘...he won’t have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it’s going to kill me.’_

_‘Give ‘er hell...’_

_‘Rule One - the Doctor lies.’_

_‘You embarrass me...’_

_‘Like me, for instance!’_

_‘I’m sorry. But that’s when everything changes.’_

_‘...and a last time...’_

_‘It can be rewritten!’_

_‘Amelia’s Last Farewell’_

_‘He doesn’t really know me yet. Now he never will.”_  

_a slap, an angry look, the pain of him not knowing her_

_‘Oh Doctor, you and your secrets. You’ll be the death of me.’_  

If he had been standing, the Doctor would have staggered back as River broke the link. She sat, her face dry but her eyes full of tears, and stared at him, a wordless apology echoing between them. Clearly reading read the guilt and shame on his face, she took a deep breath and said, softly, “I’m sorry, my love. I only meant to show you the Byzantium and Asgard, to show you why I hi... why I was so lonely for a you who _knows_ me, who trusts me, why I mistrusted _any_ you. Not all... that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, horrified - but unsurprised - at how badly he had hurt her. _My River Song,_ he thought in despair. _Did I do all that to you? Of course I did, I..._

“‘Course it matters,” she said, mimicking his earlier words. He shook his head. “It _does_ matter, sweetie. You didn’t know. Here,” she said, and pulled him to her once more. “Let me show you the other side of it.” This time the images were clear, hyper-bright with the clarity of loving memory, and the Doctor gasped again.

_‘’Hello, sweetie.’_

_‘...the most important person in the universe, and so very precious to me...’_

_‘Don’t you touch her! Do not harm her in any way!_

_‘Are you asking?_

_‘Look into my eye...’_

_‘She will be amazing...’_

_‘It’s real to me!’_

_‘I absolutely trust him.’_

_‘Hi, honey. I’m home.’_

_‘It must hurt...’_

_‘...my friend River, nice hair, clever...’_

_‘Come with me.’_

_‘She is under_ my _protection!’_

_‘...shouldn’t like that. Kinda do a bit.’_

_‘My own personal Siren.’_

_‘I could give some back.’_

_‘The woman who married me.’_

_‘Never run when you’re scared. Rule Seven. Please.’_

_‘I’ll make it a good one...’_

_...a kiss, a light tap on the nose, the hot-when-he’s clever look, and the running,  
always running hand in hand with the Doctor. _ My _Doctor, my love..._

 _‘Always and completely forgiven...’_  

They broke apart, and this time River didn’t bother to hide the tears, though those in the Doctor’s eyes were so thick he didn’t notice. “You see, do you see, my love? For every bad thing, there’s a good, or more than one. Always.” She sniffled and put her hands up to his face, wiping his cheeks where the tears had spilled over and smiling at him. “Always.” This time it was a whisper, and she drew him down for a kiss.

“I’ve hurt you so much,” the Doctor heard himself say into her mouth, and she broke the kiss gently, smiling into his eyes. Hers were still misted with tears, and _oh_ , so sad, but the smile was _real_ and tender and caring, and the Doctor wanted to drown in it.

But he hadn’t the _right_ , not with how much he’d hurt her; her entire life was buggered up because of him, and... but she was moving up to murmur into his ear. “And helped me so much.”

He shook his head. “ I’ve pushed you away, _hurt_ you because I was scared.”

“And you forgave me, and you loved me, even as I killed you,” River said softly, pulling back to look at him. “Twice.”

The Doctor didn’t deny it, _couldn’t_ deny it. He took her hand, the one he’d kissed as he healed it, and managed a shaky smile into those sad green eyes. “Will you come with me, River Song, Melody Pond?”

“Of course I will,” she said, and now the threatened tears were happy ones. “You watch us run.”


	13. The Last Wedding

_“He’s been promising for ages...”_

_~River Song, Last Night_

 

Run they did, together, hand in hand. Neither acknowledged aloud that they were running from the heartache of losing loved ones; they just ran. They played tourist over all of time and space, except those times that were forbidden them, by history or circumstance. And the big blue box aided them in running away from the pain.

 _It’s not_ all _running away,_ the Doctor thought defensively, though there was nobody to defend against. _Some of it - the best bits - are just_ running _with River_.

They finally made it to the sixth moon of Avalon, which was everything they had hoped. They checked on the progress of Jim the Fish’s dam and discovered that it had been finished for years. When Jim hustled them away from his people - both humans and Hath - River seemed to take it as a matter of course, but the Doctor was somewhat hurt until Jim explained that there were spoilers. They had several of the Lizzes marry them again (Liz Eight having long since forgiven them the debacle with the scoring computer), and they brought their total wedding count to forty-nine.

The Doctor dropped River off at her rooms at Luna University now and then, to fulfill the requirements of ‘not all the time,’ or so she could teach a class or take a group of students on a field trip. There was one young woman - Anita - that she had taken under her wing, and about whom she felt rather maternal. Because of Anita, River was always willing to leave, knowing she could come back. Even when she went off on field trips he saw her, a younger her, took her away from Stormcage for a night or a week at a time. The young River and her Doctor trudged through the Sands of Shifting Tides, and another time they marvelled over the purple moons of Syllyria Seven. And then he would go back, and pick _his_ River up at the University.

It was idyllic, even with the grief in the back of their minds and hearts. Until River came into her door one day - it was a day for her anyway, about noon local time - brimming with excitement over a field trip sponsored by the Lux family. A trip to the biggest library in the universe, she had said, nearly giddy, and two of her best students and the university pilot - Anita and a couple of guys called Dave - were coming along.

The Doctor went cold all over. _It’s time,_ he thought numbly, _and I’m not ready._ “But...” he said, and trailed off, staring at her.

“Sweetie?” River was all concern. “Are you all right?” She reached out one hand to pat his bow tie and he flinched.

“Oh, forgot something,” he said hoarsely, trying hard not to let her see the spoilers on his face, and turned on his heel to go back to the TARDIS. _Running away,_ he thought grimly, and the old girl seemed to agree, sticking her doors shut at first, and letting him in only reluctantly. “I won’t run, old girl,” he murmured, stroking a screen fondly. “I won’t rewrite her history. Not one line.” He knew she wouldn’t have let him run away, not from her child, whom she loved nearly as much as she did him. So he turned and walked slowly back to River’s doorstep.

“What did you forget, my love?” River was still cheerful, excited about this field trip that made his hearts ache just to think about. She didn’t seem to notice.

“Our itinerary,” the Doctor said, forcing a grin. “If you don’t have to leave right away.”

She shook her head. “Several weeks before the Lux family will be ready to go, though I’ll have to come back for a day or so to supervise the packing,” she told him cheerfully. “Not that it matters to you and the old girl.”

“Then how would you feel about making the weddings a nice round fifty? I thought maybe we could ask Jim the Fish...” he trailed off as River’s smile got, if anything, wider.

“What a lovely idea, sweetie,” she said, and kissed him before sailing out the door to the waiting TARDIS.

 

\--/--

 

“Just the thing,” said Jim the Fish, The Man Who Would, with satisfaction as they explained their request in his... the Doctor supposed there was some churchy name for the room where they were having tea, but he would call it an office. “The wedding of The Avatar of the Source and his handmaiden, to consecrate the dam and the temple on it!” He was terribly enthusiastic, the Doctor thought, but the timing really did work out well. _Where I need to be, or where I am needed... sometimes where I need to be is also where I_ want _to be._

But River was talking through clenched teeth, and both men looked at her, startled, Jim’s teacup clattering into his saucer. _Why is she annoyed?_ , wondered the Doctor, but she clued him in immediately. “I am _not_ ,” she ground out, “merely his ‘handmaiden’.” She glared at both men, and Jim made a helpless sort of gesture toward the Doctor.

“No,” the Doctor said hastily. “I’m sure we can find suitable titles that will be accurate and will mean something to the people of Messaline.” She did not really look mollified, but he knew that she would think about it, and soften. She always did.

“Yes,” agreed Jim with equal haste, “And on that note, would you be amenable to explaining the needs of the ceremony to my high priestess? She’s a very _good_ priestess, but she knows nothing of any culture save her own.” River gave him a short nod, and - collecting the priestess on her way - went back into the TARDIS.

Jim turned to the Doctor. “Now, my old friend,” he said gently. “I am going to pry into something that may be none of my business. Why are you so sad?”

“Does it show?” _I hope River can’t see it. She’d never say_.

“Hm,” mused Jim. “You’re often... melancholy. But this time...” he trailed off, waving a hand at the Doctor vaguely.

“Have River or I ever explained spoilers to you?” Jim shook his head. “I... we’re time travellers, you know, and we... sometimes there are things we _daren’t_ say, for fear of changing the timeline.” He let that sink in for a bit, hoping that Jim would understand, and was relieved when the portly human priest gave him a nod.

“Right, so something that would be spoilers has you upset. Is there anything I can do?”

The Doctor gave him a slight smile. “Just keep on as you are, Jim the Fish... one of the very few people in the universe - _certainly_ one of the only clergy - that my River Song can trust.”

“You love her very much.” Jim’s eyes were kind, and wise, and put the Doctor in mind of one Wilfred Mott. _A good man, Jim the Fish_ , he thought, _a very good man._

“For over two centuries,” he admitted, and felt his throat constrict, “My bespoke... never mind that.” He felt the smile start to slip, and forced it wider.

The Doctor never did learn what exactly River discussed with Jim’s high priestess, a Hath female called something even _he_ couldn’t pronounce; he hadn’t the gills for it. Or what Jim and the priestess had discussed when the Hath woman came back to Jim’s office and the Doctor himself had been shooed off back to the TARDIS. But he got the gist of it; they must have talked about combining the marriage customs of Messaline and Earth and Gallifrey, using River’s own knowledge and probably that of his ship, because the wedding was spectacular. And while he couldn’t precisely _forget_ that it would be the last one, that River was going to the Library soon, he found that the knowledge could be pushed to the back of his mind during the festivities.

Any thought of despair went completely out of his head when he saw River Song in high formal Hath finery, pacing slowly up an impromptu aisle through the throngs of people who had come to see the spectacle. The... gown? outfit?... it seemed to consist primarily of a light, floaty fabric in iridescent purples and greens, in a sort of opposite pattern to those of the Haths’ natural scales, and River’s skin glowed golden with the contrast.

She was _beautiful_.

The people of Messaline clearly thought so too; they cheered as River walked steadily toward the platform on the dam where the Doctor and Jim the Fish stood. Small children - both human and Hath - trailed behind her, scattering rose petals and what looked like mother-of-pearl shell fragments as they went.

When River ascended the stairs to the platform atop the sacred dam, the cheering quieted to a low murmur of the mingled peoples of Messaline passing some sort of message, and the Doctor could see how luminous the green of River’s eyes were. She came to him and reached up to loosen his bow tie. “We’ll need this, sweetie,” she said simply. “A strip of cloth about a foot long.” And she pulled it out of his collar and wrapped one end around her hand, held it out to him. He wrapped the other end around his hand, leaving his fingers free to intertwine with hers.

They stood staring at one another, inches apart, as Jim the Fish, the Man Who Would, began to speak. He spoke of the freeing of the Source to work her miracle across the planet, and of love enduring across time and space, and of working together as Hath and human. He spoke of courage and intellect and joy. And then he said, in ringing tones, “Who gives this man, the Avatar of the Source, the Man Who Never Would, the Healer of Worlds, to his River Song?”

“We consent and gladly give,” said the assembled thousands of humans of Messaline, and River smiled into the Doctor’s eyes.

“And who gives this woman, Handmaiden of the Doctor, Bespoke and Beloved, Warrior and Scholar, to her Doctor?”

“We consent and gladly give,” bubbled the assembled thousands of Hath of Messaline, and the TARDIS translated for her child. The Doctor smiled into River’s eyes as they widened at the endearment ‘beloved’.

_‘River, you know my name. You whispered my name in my ear. There's only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could.’_

There had been fifty times he could, fifty weddings, a nice round number, fifty. But _this_ wedding, with joy and love and support from friends, not an emergency, not a lark, not just running away, a _real_ wedding... this was the one time he could let himself.

“Now, River. I'm about to whisper something in your ear and you have to remember it very, very carefully and tell no one what I said.” He leaned in and murmured the rounded, liquid syllables into her ear, and watched as her eyes widened again at how _simple_ it all was _._ “I just told you my name. Now. There you go.” He eased back.

“Then you may kiss the bride,” Jim said simply.

“I’ll make it a good one,” the Doctor said seriously, and leaned in again.

“You’d better,” River replied, and accepted the kiss.

And the people of Messaline, human and Hath alike, cheered.

 

\--/--

 

They danced, of course. They always danced at weddings. River had known, had told him, outside her parents’ wedding so long ago. After a while they went off to enjoy some of the food - delicacies both human and Hath, clearly labelled for safety - and chatted with the guests of the massive party that followed the wedding. The old girl was nearby, serving as a translator, and Jim’s high priestess was quite clearly getting giddy on a Hath beverage called - appropriately enough - bubbly.

The Doctor went off in search of more of that lovely unfermented juice of the branka fruit, and lost track of River for a bit, but then spotted her whirling in a wild dance with the Hath children who had been her attendants during the ceremony. She threw him a wink as she spun by, and he grinned after her, enjoying her being... carefree.

“Do time-travellers even have honeymoons?” asked Jim of the Doctor, later, in a quiet(ish) corner.

“Certainly,” said the Doctor, “We’ve just more places and times we can go is all.”

“Well...?”

“Well, what?”

“Where are you taking her, man? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it. My own wife’d never have forgiven me!” The Doctor grinned at him. He’d met Jim’s wife over the course of the festivities, and he had no doubt that if Jim had forgotten something as important as a honeymoon, she’d have taken him apart, very nicely, and put him back together again... on notice. She was a fiery one, as close to River Song personality-wise (though physically Missus Fish was tall, skinny, and brunette) as a fully human woman was capable of being, and the Doctor rather suspected that Jim had courted her because she reminded him of River. Certainly they hadn’t met the woman on earlier visits, and right now she was dancing with the human children who had been River’s other attendants, and fully as enthusiastically as River herself.

“I haven’t decided,” the Doctor temporised, but Jim was having none of it, and insisted on knowing where, or at least that the Doctor _had_ thought of a place. _I don’t want to say it_ , the Doctor admitted to himself, knowing full well it was stupid. _Saying the name won’t bring it faster, and it has to be done, because of ‘not one line’... but I’ve managed to put it off for ages now, even when I promised her.._.

But still he resisted saying it, as though saying - or even thinking - the name would hasten the end...

“I’m hoping,” said River’s husky voice in his ear as she wrapped an arm around his waist, interrupting his train of thought, “That he’ll take me to Darillium, to see the Singing Towers. He’s been promising for ages.”

 _Do not show it,_ the Doctor told himself severely, and managed a smile. “Right, well, there’s that surprise spoiled then,” he said in a cheerful tone, and pulled a face at his wife. She smirked back, and they stood grinning at one another until Jim cleared his throat, loudly. They looked at him.

“I _said_ ,” he repeated, “It’s time to get the happy couple off to the far horizons.” He smiled at them in a sort of benediction as his own wife wrapped her arm around his pudgy waist. He dropped his voice. “Is this the last time we’ll see you, Doctor? River?”

“Oh no, Jim the Fish,” River said, and smiled at him and she took her husband’s hand and tugged gently toward the TARDIS. The door opened. “We’ll be back at least once, I can promise you that. And him?” She jerked her head at the Doctor. “He always shows up when you least expect it.”

“You haven’t seen the last of me, Jim the Fish,” the Doctor said solemnly as he backed into his ship. “Bad Penny is my middle name.” _Just ask River’s parents..._

“Bad Penny?” Jim seemed confused, and the Doctor reflected that here and now, on a planet like Messaline, the phrase might not have survived.

“Never mind. Spoilers!”

He plastered a grin to his face and shut the TARDIS doors.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	14. And the Towers Sang

_“This man must fall as all men must. The fate of all is always dust.”_

_~The Whisper Men, The Name of the Doctor_

 

The Doctor had much to do to prepare.

If he even could prepare for this, for Darillium.

Oh, he _could_ , he had to, because of not-one-line.

He did not want to.

 

 _‘You turned up on my doorstep with a new haircut and a suit.’_  

But not just any suit. He remembered, when he and young River had gone to Calderon Beta, and five-years-on River had gone back to Stormcage... _this_ River, the one he had just dropped at Luna University... she had worn that metallic greeny-bronze dress. And he had worn his tuxedo. With the top hat that was the only headgear River liked on him.

Well, he could get his hair cut. He could find the tuxedo. He had already given her his name, and he could... he _must_... construct her a sonic screwdriver.

Or he would change the one thing that would destroy the past two hundred years and more for him, rewrite her history at the end, rewrite his future. And that he must not do. So her sonic must have... what? The neural relay; that was of primary importance, or this would all be for nothing. It had looked like his Mark VI, except for the red settings and the dampers.

A screen lit up at the console, lines forming a diagram of River’s sonic, and the Doctor gave his ship a grim little smile. “Why do I even try?” he murmured - to himself or to her was unclear. “You’ve always got everything I need, don’t you, old girl? Except...” He shook his head and got to work.

When it was done, the Doctor sat in the repair sling under the console for a long time, running his hands over the sonic he and his old girl had crafted for his wife, her child. Memorising it with sensitive fingertips and time sense and hearts, as though by knowing it, he could keep River safe.

 _‘The towers sang, and you cried.’_  

And he wept.

The Doctor put on the tuxedo, slipped the sonic into the pocket nearest his left heart, and went to pick River up from her doorstep. The sense of inevitability was getting stronger; he could practically taste the timelines converging on them as he knocked on her door. And he nearly wept again as she opened it, in her greeny-bronze dress with the snug waist, and the high heels, and all that hair haloing her head. “Hello,” he managed, and she smiled.

“Hello.” River’s smile was... slightly uncertain. She knew something was going on, but she would never say; she knew there would be spoilers. The Doctor remembered; this him had looked so pale and drawn, old in spite of the face-of-a-twelve-year-old, and River was never stupid. She could see.

She could always see, once she knew him. Better than he could.

But they went to the planet of the ice cream shops, and ran into the younger him, and River checked the bulb on top of the younger Doctor’s TARDIS, to give him time to get the five-years-on River back to Stormcage. There was flirting, and the-mind-races (even though she had already done that; she was teasing the younger him because she so loved to see him flustered), and the terrible conversation with his younger self. And the timelines tightened around his hearts.

Finally they were at Darillium, and River was excited in spite of what the Doctor could see was a lingering uncertainty. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and turned to his wife. “Now,” he said softly. “River Song. Come with me,” and he offered her his arm.

She smiled at him, and accepted it, and together they stepped out of the TARDIS and onto the plain where the Towers stood. They stopped dead, listening, waiting for the Towers’ song.

And then it came.

The song was low, and soft, and heartbreakingly sad.

 _‘Every song must end...’_  

River Song’s song was ending, _had_ ended when Ood Sigma had told him that. And it was close to ending now, again, from the other end this time.

And then, suddenly and without warning, the Doctor was ready, as ready as he would ever be, to send off his River Song. He would cry as the Towers sang - he couldn’t help that because it had been written - but he would make this day perfect for her if it was the last thing he did.

He held out one hand to her.

“Will you dance with me?” She smiled at him, and took his hand, twirling toward him and into his arms, where he held her as they swayed to the Song of the Towers. “Ah, my River,” he murmured into her hair, and she tipped her head up and back to look at him.

“Spoilers, then?” Her voice was quiet as they danced, and he nodded, and now the tears came. River curved her hand behind his neck and drew him down for a kiss. It was a long, slow, sweet kiss, and he wanted it to last forever, wanted her to _stay_ forever.

But she could not, would not, _had_ not, and so there was nothing for it.

It was time.

The Doctor broke the kiss, but kept his arms tightly around River, and rested his forehead against hers. “My River Song, Melody Pond,” he said in a choked voice, blinking the tears back again. “The woman who married me.” He took a deep breath. “And wife, I have a request.”

“Yes,” River said, the _yes_ from her parents’ wedding, full of love and trust and just a little mystery. And she smiled into his eyes, though hers were so, _so_ sad.

“Take this,” he said, slipping her sonic out of his pocket and pressing it into her hand. “Take it, my River, and keep it with you always. Promise me, River, _please_.”

“Always, my love,” she said, closing her fingers around the sonic. “I promise.”

And she drew him down with her into the long grass at the foot of the nearest Tower, and made slow and gentle love to him as all the Towers sang.

 

\--/--

 

Then she was gone.

He took her back to her little house, left her on her doorstep, and he did not cry. The tears were all cried out. His tenth self had cried so easily, so often. Rose, and the Master, and... well. This self, _River’s_ Doctor, this self had cried seldom, and only over his family. Amy and Rory, and Idris... and River. Now it was time to put that part of him - the part with a family - away, wrap it up in rosemary for remembrance, and go it alone.

It was the only way to stop the pain, but...

_but I’m dangerous when I’m alone  
...at least I still have the old girl_

_Yes. I’ve still got the old girl,_ he thought as he trudged back to her, used the key because he couldn’t bear to snap his fingers - _River_ had  taught him how.

But the TARDIS had changed.

She looked more... streamlined, futuristic in the human sense. Less of the quirky hodgepodge he had become so fond of and more... Gallifreyan. Colder.

 _‘Ice in her heart...’_  

And he knew, with that slow sort of dawning knowledge he sometimes got from her, that this was her way - the TARDIS’ way - of grieving for her child. A complete change inside, mirroring the pain in his hearts. Well.

“You and me, old girl,” he said softly, and stroked the new console with his fingertips. The Cloister Bell donged once, revealing more about the TARDIS’ state of mind (or her broken heart), and he gave her a sour little half-smile. “Me too, my old girl. Me too.” A sad, low hum emitted from the console, and his right ear grew warm. She wanted him to follow.

Follow he did, and the TARDIS took him on a tour of her reconfigured rooms. If the bedroom he had shared most often with River, or the zero-gee room where she had done her strange sort of yogic stretches, or the blue-tiled kitchen where he had implored her over and over to just _try_ the fish fingers and custard... if those rooms were still in the TARDIS, the old girl wasn’t showing him.

The pool had been moved out of the library.

_once I believed a library was_   
_as cool as a bow tie_   
_...foolish old man_

The Doctor lost track of how long he wandered his TARDIS; it could have been hours or days, or millennia, and it wasn’t the same as with one of his... friends _(not River, don’t think of River, it hurts)_. He loved his old girl, of course he did, but he wanted a... a _biped_ , at least someone who lived in only a few dimensions at once. He thought more than once of looking up an old friend, Sarah Jane, maybe, or Jack. Jack would understand, who better? Or a younger Rory from before Manhattan _(too close to Melody and too new and too raw)_ , or Ace _(the angry adolescent, like Mels... no!),_ or even someone from his far past. The Brigadier maybe, before he died. Once or twice the thought occurred that he could even go find a younger River, one from before Darillium, but his mind shied away from that thought entirely; it hurt too much to bear.

_‘tick tock goes the clock,_   
_and all the years they fly,_   
_tick tock goes the clock,_   
_you and I must die...’_

_I miss you so, my River Song_  

_Melody Pond_

_The woman who married me..._  

It would be simpler if he could have died along with her. But he must carry on. Isn’t that what the humans did, ‘keep calm and carry on?’

_Indomitable humans..._

_At least,_ he thought vaguely, as he finally came to the console room again _(was this one that Idris had told him was archived? and had it been years? or only days? and did it matter?)_ in his wandering, _at least I’m not going to go all Time Lord Victorious again. Too big, and too noisy, and too much... too much pain to bear. No need to hurt other people, when I can just be alone.._.

_too tired to stay_   
_in the universe_   
_too old and tired_   
_I’m better alone_

And then, as he finally reached the repair sling still under the console _(thank you, old girl)_ , he slumped into it. And for a while - mercifully - he knew no more.

“Doctor?” A voice.

A young, human, female voice. Speaking English.

“Doctor, it’s me, it’s Jenny.”

 _Jenny? But Jenny’s dead, on Messaline_  
 _I never asked Jim the Fish, never went to her grave_  
 _not enough Time Lord in Jenny to regenerate_  
 _like they were_ (had been) _on Karn_  
 

 _Jenny?_  

“Jenny?” His voice was hoarse, his throat dry.

His eyes closed so as not to see the empty TARDIS.

“That’s right, Doctor, Jenny Flint, Madame Vastra’s... friend. Remember?” Her voice sounded frightened, unsure, as though she thought he might do something unspeakable to her.

Or maybe she just thought him mad.

 _as she should_  

But she was gone, and then Vastra was there.

_Vastra. Of course._   
_Vastra and Jack, the only ones who could..._   
_could understand, now the Time Lords were gone,  
now that River... _

The Doctor opened his eyes and looked at his friend, and saw in her face that she understood.

“Go get Strax,” she whispered aside to her wife, and Jenny scurried off. “Oh, my old friend,” the Silurian murmured in her own language as she knelt beside him. “How much more terrible must it be to possess two hearts to break. I mourn with thee.” She pressed delicately scaled lips against his forehead and he felt that if her species could cry, she would weep for him.

He could not weep. This pain was too deep for tears. 

Strax was almost gentle with him, and that alone shocked the Doctor back into sense. He must have been very badly off for a Sontaran - nurse or not - to treat him with such care. And that wasn’t even including the fact that Strax was _alive_ ; that had been another shock.

The Doctor refused to interfere in the lives of his friends or the rest of the denizens of Victorian London; he was retired now _(no use, no fun, no reason anymore,_ his mind whispered to him). But they in turn refused to let him leave, saying he needed to be with people, and the old girl backed them up by simply retreating to the clouds and going no further. And so he spent his days tinkering with the TARDIS, wearing Amy’s spectacles and trying not to think about those he had lost.

It didn’t work very well, in spite of what he now recognised as the old girl’s best effort at making her interior look like no other she’d had. None he’d ever shared with a companion, a friend, a lover, a wife, a brother, anyone now lost to him. No, trying not to think of them didn’t work very well. He was rubbish at being alone.

_but it’s safer for them_   
_my friends, my family_   
_the universe_

Victorian London, in its gloomy bleakness, suited his mood perfectly, and sometimes he went out into it, not admitting even to himself that he needed to be with people, if only on the periphery. Vastra and Jenny and Strax... they wouldn’t leave him _alone_ , and he wanted to be left alone, to live out the rest of his lonely days with his TARDIS and his memories. And nothing else. The ice where his hearts used to be, perhaps, that was all. But they kept _at_ him, every time he ventured out, trying to get him deeper into the world again. He wondered sometimes whether River had sent them a message long ago, asking them to look after him when she was not there to do it. Or if the old girl had asked them, was asking them even now.

 

\--/--

 

The first time River appeared to him, the Doctor thought he was dreaming. Or mad.

“You’ve got to stop this, sweetie,” she said, sad-eyed but smiling at him, and he ignored her. Or tried to. “It’s not good for you. Go on, go out. Find a companion, travel the stars.”

 _She..._ he thought with a single wild moment of hope, and shoved Amy’s spectacles up his nose. Then he sobered. _No. Of course, it’s just loneliness, my mind manufacturing what I_ think _River would say. Ignore it._

But it - or she - would not be ignored. He almost smiled at that; it was so like her, to absolutely, utterly _refuse_ to be ignored. Like a force of nature. Well then. If he was to be haunted by this ‘ghost’ of River Song - one he had probably manufactured from grief and pain and loneliness - so be it. He would listen, and he would take her words under consideration, but he would _not_ be forced into responding to her, he would _not_ just do as she said without question.

 _Not-one-line._.. it had ended with her death.

He might not have given in even then, might not have done as River said, might not have found a companion. But for one thing.

It was Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this was a rough one. If it seems OOC, I'm sorry; chalk it up to grief on the Doctor's part. It's not solely River, you know; it's everyone he's lost.


	15. Impossible

_“I can always see you...”_

_~The Doctor, The Name of the Doctor_

 

“It’s not your fault, sweetie,” River’s ghost told him, and he almost believed her.

Almost.

Jenny had been quietly sympathetic. Strax had been gentle with him again as Clara lay dying. The Latimers had wept, and in their weeping - on Christmas - had defeated the Intelligence. But Vastra... Vastra had said it too; that there was no point in blaming himself.

Vastra and River’s ghost. The two women who had lived long enough - seen enough, done enough - to truly understand.

Not that he wanted understanding.

But it would be restful if he didn’t have to… to _explain_ himself all the time, if he had a traveling companion who just _knew_. Enough of these ruddy young know-nothing humans who…

 _No_. 

No, that was half the fun, more than half, the young humans and their - how had he put it to Amy, so long ago? “When you see it, I see it.”

Vastra and Jack, the ones who had been around a bit, they understood but they didn’t see it either. Not anymore. Not like the new ones.

Like Clara.

Right, well. Where - and when - to look for Impossible Clara? She’d died in the future at the Asylum; he was sure of that. The one Dalek in the whole of history he’d _liked_ , and she’d... And she’d died here in Victorian England. Too many places and times to search, and too few where he’d already met her to see a pattern, even for him. “What d’you think, old girl?” he murmured, not caring that the TARDIS wouldn’t answer in words.

“Jim the Fish?” said the ghost of River Song.

“Somewhere in the past, I think,” said the Doctor, very carefully not looking at the ghost, deliberately addressing the console. “Maybe... somewhere quiet, where I can think. But not _too_ isolated. I...” _I need people, at least now and again..._

“I’ve got just the place,” remarked the phantom River and leaned in to whisper quietly at one of the screens, so quietly he couldn’t hear.

The rotor started up, and the TARDIS began to dematerialise. 

A monastery. A monastery in the 13th century. The Doctor hadn’t expected that, and if the ghostly River was a figment of his overwrought imagination, wouldn’t she have sent him somewhere he expected? But that would mean it really _was_ River, not a... wait, no, it did fulfill the requirements he had laid out - quiet, alone, but people nearby - so... oh, of course, the old girl had done it. Taken him where he needed to be.

Part of him was disappointed because it wasn’t really _her_.

But part of him was resigned and depressed, and he thought of Amy, how she had slept so much after they had lost Rory. Even when she didn’t remember him.

Sometimes he wished he couldn’t remember. Couldn’t go back in his mind, to the days when...

No, that was _their_ job, the Silence, making people forget... 

His was to remember. He must. For all their sakes, to... to honour those he had lost.

So he sat in the monastery, and he thought and remembered and painted a picture of Clara (with River’s ghost making what she obviously thought were helpful suggestions, as though he didn’t know how to paint after a millenium or more). Then he sat and contemplated it, trying to get a handle on her, trying to understand what she was, as though by knowing it he could keep her alive the next time they met.

 _...as though by knowing it, he could keep her safe..._  

And then she phoned him. Clara, not River. River had disappeared for a bit, but when he skidded to a stop in front of the TARDIS and picked up the impossibly ringing receiver, there she was, throwing him a wink. “Aren’t you going to answer it, honey?”.

He hadn’t realised at first that it was _her_ , Clara. He should have done; you’d think he’d know her voice by now, as it was the first part of her he’d ever encountered. At any rate, she phoned him, looking for the Internet, and she said that a woman in a shop had given her this number, and he hadn’t even known that the outside phone _had_ a number, so how...? Or more to the point, _who_? And then she said it.

 _‘Run, you clever boy, and remember...’_  

Time to go see Clara. He must save her this time; it was imperative. He knocked on her door, but apparently a 13th century monk was a bit much for this Clara, the 21st century Clara. Right, not a monk, no, he’d frightened her as the Mad Monk. Not the old tweeds or the fez either, not any of the old clothes.

Except the bow tie.

Not just any bow tie. _The_ bow tie. And from the corner of his eye, he saw the ghost of his wife, and he suspected her own eyes were wet.

He didn’t dare look more closely. It was too painful.

It would be more painful still if he looked and she wasn’t really there.

After that, it was an awful lot of running, and hacking, and inventing and uploading and downloading and... and... and impossible, _infuriating_ Clara. All he wanted to do was to keep her safe this time, and if it hadn’t been for River’s ghost - no, his subconscious, definitely his subconscious mind, or perhaps the old girl, yes, of course, if it - if it hadn’t been for _her_ , he mightn’t have managed to save Clara.

Because River - no, his own subconscious mind, he was _nearly_ sure of it - had told him how. _Fight fire with fire_ , his mind had told him through River’s form. _They hack the people, so you hack the hackers._

_They hack the people; they upload them like I did River..._

So he hacked them, and it worked, and it was like old times, the time before even River, what with UNIT and their indomitable human spirit. 

The red leaf.

It was all about the red leaf, the leaf in Clara’s book, there was something about it that was as mysterious as Clara herself. Even though Clara herself was good for him, keeping him distracted from… right, well. He was sleeping less when she was with him, and doing more, and spending less time in that limbo between murderous fury and abject despair. Why, he hadn’t destroyed a statue out of sheer rage in _weeks_ , and...

Right, yes, the leaf.

The Doctor muttered to himself, or to the TARDIS, or to River’s ghost, he wasn’t sure which. Of course the ghost was the one who suggested he follow it. “Follow the leaf, my love,” she’d said, and he tried his hardest not to react. If he reacted and she wasn’t there...

But he did follow it. And it led him somewhere he hadn’t expected.

But River had always had that effect on him, hadn’t she?

“Another pyramid, sweetie?” asked ghost-River in an arch tone, teasing, and he looked sharply at Clara, who was gazing wide-eyed at the Pyramid. Did she hear? Did she see?

She did not.

“You’re a thousand years old,” Clara was saying as they considered renting a moped from Dor’een, “You must have something you care about.”

 _No!_  

 _Relax, old man,_ he told himself, _she doesn’t know what she’s saying. All I’ve got left is…_

He took out his sonic, regarded it, because the ghost of his wife was watching him, and giving away the only _other_ thing he cared about right now was unthinkable. No. Not the sonic.

Or the bow tie.

And when he turned around Clara was gone.

The Doctor sighed. _They always run off_ , he thought. _She can’t get into too much trouble here though._

He thought wrong, and the sigh became a grimace as the ghost of his wife smirked smugly at him.

 

\--/--

 

River wasn’t there on the Soviet submarine, but the Doctor had his suspicions about the doll they found in his pocket. He wondered then if she - her spirit or her data ghost or his subconscious image of her - if she was tied to the TARDIS somehow. The other side of the planet could have been too far for her to… no, because it sounded to the Soviets like Clara was speaking their language, so his ship _must_ be in range, and…

Right. Data ghost. Or more likely imagination. _Madman with a box indeed_ , he thought bitterly, _madder without his bespoke psychopath than with…_

Though his sonic did glow red on the sub, so maybe she was with him after all, but as a literal data ghost, the ghost in the machine, the sonic scr…no.

 _Yes_. 

 _‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth...’ I wonder where old Will got those lines, because... it could be. Just possibly could be her_ actual _ghost_ … The Doctor shook his head as Clara left the TARDIS, with whom they had joined up again, and then he went down to his repair sling, stripping off his coat and waistcoat, loosening the precious bow tie, rolling up his shirt sleeves.

He needed to think. And he did his best thinking - always had - tinkering with his old girl and talking to her.

That he was also talking to River’s ghost was beside the point.

“No chance for goodbyes…” River was back, and her words suggested she had been with him the whole time. Or at the very least, through the bulk of his speech to Skaldak. She was standing there in front of him, eyes as always showing more than her face. So sad, but also happy on some level. Content just to be with him, even if - as she thought - he couldn’t see her.

Assuming she was real, of course, and as that thought crossed his mind, she winked at him and blew him a kiss. Then she disappeared. 

The first time the Doctor knew - really _believed_ \- that River was not a figment of his guilty imagination was when he awoke from a fretful doze after the Ice Warrior incident. Like Amy after they lost Rory this first time, he was sleeping quite a lot whenever Clara wasn’t there (though less than in the immediate aftermath of the loss of his Ponds), and - this was the confirmation - River _wasn’t there_ in his dreams. If he was imagining her, wanting her with him to the point of manufacturing her image, she would be there _more_ often as he slept, not less.

Wouldn’t she?

“Really, my love, I don’t recall this sort of obsession over _me_ ,” she said teasingly as they headed to pick Clara up for a jaunt to a haunted house, and gave him a patently false pout. “I’m beginning to wonder if I should be jealous.”

_No you’re not._

But Emma - sweet and empathetic Emma - she didn’t see River. Or gave no indication that she did. And she should be able to, shouldn’t she? An empath in a haunted mansion, ghosts all around the spooky place, she should be able to see the ghost he _knew_ was there. And the house _was_ spooky - not fun as he had hoped - and it wasn’t River’s presence that made it so. The music room - the heart of the house Emma had called it - it felt like being watched. That tickly feeling.

 _Maybe it’s the statuary,_ the Doctor thought, and shuddered inwardly. _And the words on the wall and the... no!_

“We’re all ghosts to you,” Clara said in a faint sort of voice. “We must be nothing.”

_No, Impossible Girl, you’re not. Not all of you. Not even most of you._

_Just the one ghost. And she is_ not _nothing. She is everything..._  

“You are the only mystery worth solving.” He said it looking up at her, past her. As though she was a ghost after all.

He said it to River.

She was standing there behind Clara, tears in her eyes, and he - recalling her earlier words - suddenly wondered whether River was the reason the TARDIS disliked Clara. If it wasn’t the wet brollies and the cheeky talk and the wrongness in time, like with Jack, but if the TARDIS was protecting her child in the only way she knew how. Perhaps she was jealous on River’s behalf (Victorian Clara _had_ kissed him after all), or perhaps - since she lived in all times at once - Dalek Clara was the one she saw, or… he shook his head and turned away, and set out to tackle the Ghast of Caliburn House.

She wasn’t a ghast, or even a ghost. She was lost in a pocket dimension, the haunting an echo of the real woman. There was a woman and a monster and the monster’s mate, and they were terrifying, certainly, like an army of ghosts from another dimension, brought through the walls between. But unlike those ghosts, they didn’t want to be, didn’t need to be.

It wasn’t a ghost story after all, no matter how terrifying it was. It was a love story. And that’s what he told Clara.

But Rule One held, because - for the Doctor - it was both.

 

\--/--

 

The mystery - the mystery of Clara - remained long after they’d returned to the TARDIS. The Doctor swung gently in the repair sling under the console and talked it through, thinking aloud to his wife… his wives. Either, both, it didn’t matter.

So many mysteries around Clara. Why did she die and live again in another time? It wasn’t regeneration, she wasn’t a Time Lord, she didn’t change, so… _why_? Why did the TARDIS dislike her? It wasn’t like Jack; the TARDIS had felt Jack’s wrongness, though it wasn’t his fault, and the Doctor had felt it too. Clara didn’t feel wrong in time, not like Jack, and Emma said she was ordinary, but still the TARDIS disliked her. It was a mystery as to why.

The last great mystery had been River, and Clara was different, there wasn’t that… _she wasn’t River_. River had been all, well, _River-y_ , and even after he solved the mystery of River she was there in his hearts and in his mind. So had her parents been. But Clara was different, her mystery was different, she wasn’t...

But she _was_ a mystery, the Impossible Girl, and he wanted to solve her.

 _Right then_ , the Doctor thought, _start with what you’ve got to hand._ The TARDIS. Maybe Clara could… interact with the old girl, fly her. Clara was clever, he could teach her to fly, though he hadn’t his Ponds, and he saw a quick grin come and go on River’s face as he mused aloud.

“You didn’t have to teach me to fly her, sweetie; she taught me herself. And she _liked_ my mother, so there was no need. Teach Clara to fly her.” River’s voice was warm, as warm as her smile, and the Doctor basked in its glow even as he very carefully did not look directly at her.

He would teach Clara to fly the TARDIS.

Now all he needed was the ship’s cooperation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was very much a group effort what with the commas and the recappyness, and I give heartsfelt thanks to SnubNosedSilhouette, savvyliterate, and Kehwie.


	16. Smaller on the Outside

_“It’s smaller on the outside!”_

_~Clara Oswald, The Snowmen_

 

“I know what I said,” Clara said, “I was the one who said it!”

 _Oh,_ now _she doesn’t want to talk to the TARDIS, much less fly her,_ thought the Doctor. _Now I’ve got my mind around it, she doesn’t_ want _to?_

“Steady on, my love,” whispered the ghost of his wife into his ear, “She’s scared. Be gentle.”

The Doctor very nearly snorted, but caught himself. Clara wasn’t afraid, she’d just got her back up and thought she’d look silly. Stubborn, that’s what she was, the impossible girl.

 _Impossible girl, of course!_  

He suggested putting the training wheels on, and as he’d thought, that got her back up even more. “Basic?” Now she sounded impatient, and behind her, River’s ghost was smiling at him. “‘Cause I’m a girl?”

 _Because you’re an impossible girl._  

“No!”

“Yes,” said River, smirking.

“Yes.”

Then things got a bit messy. Salvage pirates whose brother thinks he’s an android. TARDIS tantrum (though not without cause; the Doctor could concede that). The Impossible Girl doing Impossible Things, and River standing and smirking that River smirk at him as he bumbled his way through.

But he did bumble his way through, with Impossible Clara’s help, and though he shuddered all over inside when she said she’d seen the Library, it wasn’t long until he realised that she was talking about the one on his TARDIS, the one that the old girl had moved across the corridor from the pool after…after...

“After Darillium,” River said in his ear. 

 _Yes, all right,_ he thought _, after Darillium. Shut up, I can’t, I…_

River’s ghost faded out again, and the day was saved, again.

 

\--/--

 

“Do you dream, Doctor?”

“What?”

“Do you dream?”

“‘All intelligent beings dream,’” he said, “I’m quoting.” She blinked.

He sighed. _What are they teaching in schools these days?_

“Of course I dream.”

“What about?”

“About your past, my love, and you shouldn’t,” said River’s ghost,  
smiling sadly at him over Clara’s head. “You live in the past too much.” 

“The same thing everybody dreams about,” he told her.

 _Told them.  
Her. Clara._  

“I dream about where I’m going.”

“But you’re not going anywhere,” Clara was laughing at him. “You’re just wandering about.”

 _She’s right,_ he thought.  
 _They both are._  
Just wandering about,  
Living in the past. 

 _I don’t really have a future, not anymore._  

 _Not after Darillium, not after the Time War._  

“There’s Clara,” suggested River’s ghost, and the Doctor almost grinned at her. 

 _Of course, there’s Clara,_ he thought, _the Impossible Girl. A mystery to solve._

 

\--/--

 

Then there was another mystery to solve, and if it hadn’t been for the ghost of his wife he wouldn’t have made it out of Mrs. Gillyflower’s establishment with his mind intact. If it hadn’t been for Jenny Flint and Ada Gillyflower, he mightn’t have made it out alive at all.

Part of it was the timelessness of it all; it reminded him of Neverspace when his time sense shut off like that. Hard to think, and only the sweet blind girl and River’s ghost had kept him sane enough to function. If you could call it functioning when he could only think, not move, and not talk - thinking without being about to talk, to bounce ideas off of people - it was rubbish.

As Jenny Flint and Ada Gillyflower had gotten him out alive (he hadn’t _meant_ to kiss Jenny, he wouldn’t poach on Vastra, she'd tongue him into regeneration, but he, he… he wasn’t quite himself at the time. She’d slapped him and River’s shade had laughed at him, and the world was all right again).

But they got out alive, and defeated the ancient evil thing, and he had to look the other way while Ada smashed it to death. He’d have sealed it away somehow, maybe like the Carrionites of the Family of Blood, but Ada… well, it hadn’t hurt _him_ , had it? Or not for long. It deserved its death at Ada’s hands. Or the end of her cane. And River - though she probably would have killed it herself were she… solid - River seemed to approve of both Ada’s action and his own inaction.

And that made it all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one obscure science fiction reference in this chapter, and one sort-of-meta joke about this chapter. Read it again, and see if you can spot them.


	17. Shared Mind and Hearts

_“Don’t wander off.”  
~The Doctor, through all of time and space_

 

He’d only meant to take them for a day at the Spacey Zoomer.

But then that was the way it had always worked, wasn’t it? How had he forgotten that taking children - proper children, not just humans-as-children - with him rarely ended well? But no, there had been Cybermen, and unhappy emperors, all because the children had wandered off.

Well, no, not all because the children had wandered off. That had just… right, well, anyway.

River walked him through it, and he knew it was her, though he didn’t let on that he knew. It was too painful for that. She walked through it _with_ him, helped him focus. It’s what she was best at, had always been best at, aside from the guns and the lipstick and the archaeology and the… well... no, Time Lord, _focus_!

They’d tried to upgrade the children, but he - and River and Clara - would not let that happen. No upgrading the children, no blowing up the planet, very simple really. And Clara would never let anything bad happen to the children, very protective of children, Clara was. 

“Wakey wakey, boys and girls,” said Mr. Clever inside his head, and the Doctor shuddered inside and out as the Cybers woke. And the Cyber Planner took him over after the other slap, grabbed the trigger and broke it, and now it was up to Impossible Clara and a cadre of punishment detail soldiers and… if he could only lure Mr. Clever into his chess trap… and…

Cyber Planner, in his head, beating him at chess. That was no good, no good at all. The gold might’ve worked for a bit, but now it wasn’t and… ohhh, talking to himself now, to the Cyber Planner in his head and… and…

...he was cheating!

 _Oh, don't be thick, Time Lord, of course he’s cheating, no matter that he calls it using local resources_ , the Doctor told himself, _but now what?_

“I’ll be a local resource if you like, my love.” 

 _Oh, if only you could, my River, the point two three eight percent of my brain still in the balance; River takes it and… and… no! Must keep her hidden from him, she’s my secret weapon and my wife and my belo… he_ mustn’t know _about her._

“...and me, sweetie. He doesn’t know about the other queen.”

_Local resources, my River..._

And when Clara asked him if he thought she was pretty, he knew, he _knew_ , that it was a trust password of sorts, like fish fingers and custard had been to Amy, and he told her…

“It’s all right, honey,” said River Song in his head. “I don’t mind that you look.” 

He didn’t _look_ , it wasn’t his fault her skirts were short and often tight, but he wasn’t _looking_ , not as such.

There was the ghost of a laugh from  
his own personal ghost 

“No,” the Doctor said, “You’re too short and bossy and your nose is all funny.”

“Oi,” said River in his head, “ _My_ nose is funny. You seem to like it.” 

_In an entirely different way, my River, and bossy too. You, not your nose._

_But I miss your funny nose, and the way you’d wrinkle it when I tapped it and…_

They saved the day, of course, just like they always did, and all because Angie’d recognised Porridge as the Emperor.

Children wandering off caused problems, but children were almost always solutions too.

 

/

 

_Trenzalore, the Fall of the Eleventh, Doctor Who?_

_I don’t know where I am..._

_Doctor Who?_

_I don’t know where I am..._

_Doc. Tor. Who?_

The Doctor gasped and sat bolt upright.

But there was nothing wrong. The TARDIS was quiet but for the reassuring _whoosh_ of the rotor, and the soothing hum in the back of his skull that meant _TARDIS_ to him.

Then he had it… where was his ghost? Always before, since Darillium, since the first time she had appeared to him, if he woke in the night she was there, her smile either tender or naughty, or both.

She wasn’t there.

Well then, that tore it once and for all, didn’t it? Now he knew for certain it was her, not a figment, a ghost. Well, not a ghost as such, a… a soul, a wandering one like the Ghast of Caliburn House. His own personal echo of the woman who married him. That was why she wasn’t there as he woke this time. If she was a figment of his imagination she’d be there. If she was real - for a given definition of _real_ involving the soul of a woman floating through the ether or the Neverspace or somewherewhen - well, then she likely had things to do sometimes.

Maybe he’d go talk with Clara.

 But Clara was asleep when he got there, and he offered to look after the children until she woke.

The little Daleks went to the cinema, they’d even wandered off from here, from home, tricked _him_ , clever, clever little humans as they were, and he didn’t realise until Clara woke, and then…

...and then…

“So who was she,” Clara said with an intense sort of innocence, and the Doctor broke inside. He could actually _feel_ his hearts breaking, never felt that before, not since Darillium, he…

 _River, my River Song_  
Melody Pond, the woman  
who married me… 

And what it _meant_ that Clara had met her, that Clara had talked with her…

Unlike him, too scared of the pain and the guilt and the… 

Clara hadn’t done the usual companion thing when he had cried. She’d just… helped.

As Vastra had helped, and Strax and Jenny.

During the dark times.

Trenzalore…

He had to go to Trenzalore.

And fall. 

/

 

“You don’t like endings, sweetie.” River had said it to him, more than once, and he had agreed.

But it wasn’t that simple. 

It never had been, but that was how River saw him.

She loved him, and she knew him, but there were… blind spots in the way she saw him. She saw him as a man, a _good_ man, a better man than he was.

But she also saw him as the boogeyman for the SIlence, as Amy’s Raggedy Doctor, as…

...as the warrior of the Gamma Forests  
 _(the only water in the Forest is the River)_  
as someone who didn’t like endings 

So when they fell to Trenzalore, he and Clara and his TARDIS, and River spoke to Clara, his hearts ached. “He can’t see or hear me,” River said, and the Doctor nearly laughed. _She doesn’t know,_ he thought, _she really doesn’t know that I can see her, hear her,_ ache _for her every day._

He walked toward the women, his companion and his wife, and… stopped.

Because behind his River there was a grave.

And it had her name on it. 

“If it isn’t my gravestone, what is it?”

The Whisper Men were coming, and River still didn’t know he could hear her, see her, or she wouldn’t be having Clara repeat what she said.

And they went into the grave…

And fell once more at Trenzalore.

“Left me like a book on a shelf,” River was saying, and the Doctor’s knees nearly buckled from the pain. _She knows better, doesn’t she? She_ knows _I didn’t really know her then, but a book on a shelf, River, my_ …

Whisper Men.

And running.

And Clara remembered.

Whisper Men and running.

The Great Intelligence.

It wanted his name.

Doctor Who?

Doctor Who?

Doctor Who? 

“I didn’t do it, the Doctor heard himself say, staring at the ghost of his wife in shock.

But she didn’t know.  
She didn’t know he could see her.

And the door was open.

 

All was paradox.  
And all the Intelligence wanted,  
all it had ever wanted,  
was to destroy him.

 

“A universe without the Doctor,” he heard Vastra say, “There will be consequences.”

“Please, please, no…” _You can’t go in there, Clara, you can’t._

_But she has._

River argued against it, he heard her, even as he lay dying.

“Run, you clever boy,  
and remember me.” 

And she saved him, his Impossible Girl, born to save the Doctor, saved him again and again and again.

“We are all restored,” Vastra said, but they were not, not while Clara was still in there they weren’t, and he was going to get her.

“Doctor, please listen to me. At least hear me.” _Hush, River, my River, I have to save Clara_.

“Now, if I don't come back - and I might not…”

“Doctor!” _Please, River, I can’t bear it, I can’t!_

“...go to the TARDIS. The fast return protocol should be on. She'll take you home then shut herself down.” _As she did with Rose so long ago._

“There has to be another way. Use the TARDIS, use _something_. Save her, yes. But for God's sake, be sensible!” River pulled her arm back to slap him, hard, and he stopped her. He had never stopped her before, the other two – _no, three, you’ve forgotten the Library_ – times she had hit him. “How are you even doing that? I'm not really here.” _You are, oh, River, you are…_

“You're always here to me. And I always listen. And I can always see you.” _Always. Completely._

“Then why didn't you speak to me?” _No, not the look, that look in her eyes, I can’t bear it…_

“Because I thought it would hurt too much.” _It hurt enough even for you to be there, how much more if I had spoken?_

“I believe I could have coped.” _You could. I could not._

“No. I thought it would hurt _me_. And I was right.”

And he kissed her. _So sweet, my River, and I have missed you so. But..._

“Since nobody else in this room can see you, God knows how that looked.” He took a deep breath. “There is a time to live and a time to sleep. You are an echo, River. Like Clara, like all of this. In the end, my fault, I know. But you should have faded by now.”

“It's hard to leave when you haven't said goodbye,” she said gently, and now she looked… content, though her words were sad, she looked nearly happy.

Even her eyes.

“Then tell me, because I don't know. How do I say it?”

“There's only one way I would accept,” she said. “If you ever loved me, say it like you're going to come back.”

 _If I ever loved you. You have been loved. By no-one more than me. It is the very least I can do._ “Well then. See you around, Professor River Song.”

River smirked at him. _Ahh… there she is,_ my _River_. “'Til the next time, Doctor.”

“Don't wait up.”

“Oh there's one more thing,” she said, sounding more than a little smug.

It reminded him of a time on a windswept beach,   
centuries ago and centuries ahead, Alfava Metraxis.   
“Oh,” she had said, “You’ll see me again quite soon,   
when the Pandorica opens.” 

“The Pandorica,” he had scoffed, “That’s a fairy tale.” 

“Ah, Doctor,” she’d said teasingly, “Aren’t we all?” 

He wondered, hoping against hope, if she was remembering too, trying to tell him that she would see him again someday. But he had to answer in kind.

“Isn't there always?”

“I was mentally linked with Clara. If she's really dead then how can I still be here?”

 _For that matter, how could you appear to me over the last months, when Clara wasn’t in the room?_ But there was nothing for it. He had to ask.

“Okay, How?”

“Spoilers. Goodbye. Sweetie,” she said, and disappeared.

 

/

 

**_Epilogue_ **

 

_She must have known, my River Song.  
Somehow she must have known._

_She knew what it was the other Doctors,_  
Me and Ten and the Doctor Who Was Not The Doctor  
The one who regrets and the one who forgets  
And the one who came before them 

 _She must have known what we did_  
Or she could not have loved me so long  
And so well. I hurt her, so much and so often  
And yet she insisted I was a good man

_So she must have known what we had done._

_And here I sit, in this little town._

_I came for Christmas, and I stayed._

_“Totally married her”  
my bespoke and beloved_

_No matter that now I remember._

_This town needs me to stay, and I’m staying._

_Clara is angry with me, but this is the last, the last me. Number Thirteen who is Number Eleven._

_I am old, so very old, but I cannot - I_ will _not - leave this town unprotected._

_There isn’t another way._

_Not anymore._

_Not without River, though I wouldn’t have gotten this far without her._

_All of them since the Time War._

_Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy, Rory. And Jack and even Mickey._

_Clara - I’d never have gotten anywhere without Clara._

_Born to save the Doctor._

_River knew my name._

_But Clara… Clara understands…_

_The Doctor… it’s the only name that really matters._

 

_/_

 

_In the end, before this me became the next one,  
the extra one of maybe thirteen, it was her mother I saw._

_Little Amelia Pond, little girl with a name from a fairytale  
the first face this face saw, only fitting it should be the last._

_I wanted her daughter, my River Song, but perhaps…_

_Perhaps the next me will have the courage to see her again... before she goes to the Library._

 

_River Song._

_Melody Pond._

_The woman who married me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally did it, I finished this fic. Everyone who helped, kudoed, betaed and comments, thank you so much!


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